

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 


Shelf -.-jeJF-j'!’: 


UNITED STATES OP AMERICA 









* 















i 




f 




• • 



f, 


• s 






\ 


» 




I 













4 


I 











# 



4 



f 

I 


> 


I • 




.V. 


. 4 J 

r ? 


i 


t 




i 


■ ■ 


V • •• 



V . 




•' t T s 


' ' ->ix: • 




V 


' • ^ I 


V 

> 4 




X • 


i 


'/ 


’• k ^ • r. ^ ^ ^ . 

, • . , • • -w • • • ■ 






-• .o. 


^ - i 

** • n 


/ . 


- ' ? 

- ^v•v^ 


’ ^ 


'■ * t 

'-XV -.X 


I > 


* tv, - , .- »i> • -1 

^ ' 

«• 


-a* 


•^ #;•<• v*. 




. t 


- ‘ i ' ' ‘n i^-* 

<jrt 




f V 


V 


.vv.v 

> • 

4 




“ %■ 


N — 


■ >.■■ J '■ ; vV 




4 ^ - 




0. 


■ 

- t<^ r " 


*r ^ 


'W. - ^ 


?VS 


' v* 


-* / 


, ✓ 

< ' >• ■ 


•' - 


•\ ' '■•/if* 

r • . . 

^ *• * • ■ ^ • . L.' 

y - " . « . •* . 

^ j ' . ^ ^ 0 ^ ‘ 

r V t ^ 

« • r X 

, ' - i» - f. - A ;4 


y ■ ' >.• • ■ 

v -^ - 

. \ 


•• . • * . -• 




> 


L. » ' 


•/* ^ • .- 


'•, 1-4 . 

■ i. -y-/-* •'i- ' ”• 


TS. i.’ 


"-s ' ‘ 1 ^ 


4 

> 


- -, 

er 


/ 


'/ . 


7 ^ 




•• ' .;■' • • ',iy'r'V /% y 


.. V V-*'- * V ‘ ■ .-"V ." -*•■ i , ’ ,-1*^ ■ '■ ^ s - ‘ '' ' •‘5 ’*' 

■.■'.'*'.•>^.•■’1 , -.V i \~^ V " .:-»r X ' V -"^' 

' : T -- v;. . .•,H-^''. - 


^ 



SPARE-HOUR SERIES. 


STEPPING-STONES : A STORY OF OUR 
INNER LIFE. BY SARAH DOUDNEY. • 16mo, 
CLOTH. $1.00. 

THE OTHER HOUSE. BY MARY R. . 
HIGHAM. 16mo, CLOTH. $1.00. 


I 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


MARY R. H I G H A M, 

AUTHOR OF “CLOVERLY,” ETC. 



New York ; - 

ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY, ’ ^ 

900 BROADWAY, COR. 20th STREET. 






COPYRIGHT, 1878, BY 

Anson D. F. Randolph & Company, 


/ 


new York: 

EDWARD O. JENKINS, PRINTER, 

20 North William St, 


ROBERT RUTTER, BINDER, 

84 Beekman St. 



e 










\ 





t 


TO MY FRIEND 

EMMA WATTS GANNETT, 

WITH AN AFFECTION NOT MEASURED BY YEARS, 

THIS BOOK. 




• V/' 


A V . 


/ 


k 




✓ 




!- 


i 


-t. 



/ 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER I. 


AN INTRUDER, 


CHAPTER II. 


THE RECTORY, 


CHAPTER HI. 

BOTH SIDES OF THE STREET, 


• • 


CHAPTER IV. 


PUZZLELl, 


CHAPTER V. 

DREAMS AND REALITIES, . 


• • • • 


CHAPTER VI. 

DOCTOR GALLATIN LEAVES BRIARLY, 

CHAPTER VII. 

SOMETHING TO BEAR, 


CHAPTER VIII. 


POETRY AND PROSE, 


CHAPTER IX. 


FACING THE FOE, 


• • 


(vii) 



i8 


31 


39 


58 


74 


82 


96 


109 


viii CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER X. 

DEBBY, 124 

CHAPTER XI. 

PEGASUS IN HARNESS, 135 

CHAPTER XII. 

CLARIE CHANGES HER MIND, 150 


CHAPTER XIII. 

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS, . . . . ’ . 169 

CHAPTER XIV. 


MISS CLEM. RELIEVES HER MIND, .... 182 

CHAPTER XV. 

FIRE, . • . . .192 

• CHAPTER XVI. 

A NIGHT WATCH, 20$ 

CHAPTER XVII. 

A NEW OUTLOOK, 21 5 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

IN THEIR HEARTS, - 224 

CHAPTER XIX. 

237 


:\ 

' \ 


AFTERWARD, 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


CHAPTER I. 

AN INTRUDER. 

TT was a little old-fashioned, quiet town; a town 
that had apparently fallen asleep in the warm 
sunshine of a drowsy summer day, long, long years 
ago, and never had the vitality to wake up. It was 
vertebrate in so far as its one shaded avenue went, 
with a few unimportant streets, by way of ribs, 
running from it, and a quiet villa or two on the ex- 
treme outskirts, that made up a tolerably respect- 
able body. 

“ The other house ” was Dr. Gallatin’s — at least 
the Chantellings had always called it thus; and 
‘‘the annex” belonged to the clergyman of the 
parish, the Rev. Harcourt Chantelling, and his sis- 
ter Clementina. Ever since the Chantellings had 
come to live at Briarly, in a spirit of most untram- 
meled friendliness the two houses had been thus 


2 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


named. They stood directly opposite, at one end 
of the long, shaded avenue ; both were old-fashioned 
white houses, large and roomy — Dr. Gallatin’s hav- 
ing had bay-windows added in later times, and a 
broad piazza opening into a quiet, trim, box-bor- 
dered garden, with wide-spreading fruit and shade 
trees and a scant portion of greensward, which in 
years gone by might have been termed a bleaching 
lawn, but was now promoted to the dignity of a 
croquet-ground, the doctor’s daughters being at 
that stage of existence when, if they were hard 
pushed, they would have appropriated the sacred 
place allotted to cabbages, if none other had offer- 
ed, for the unlimited development of that fashion- 
able pastime. 

The other house ” was not quite the mansion 
on which a modern architect would have established 
his reputation or chances of future fame ; but it was 
so embowered in trees, so shaded and absolutely 
overgrown with vines and roses running over it in 
the wildest luxuriance, that it was picturesque and 
pretty enough to tempt the ordinary observer into 
positive admiration. And of course Dr. Gallatin — 
a man of culture and refinement, to say nothing 
about being one of the oldest inhabitants, and the 
only physician within a radius of twenty miles — 
was assuredly the leading man of the place. At 


AN- INTRUDER. 


3 


the period of which I write the doctor was a wid- 
ower, with three pretty daughters. He l^d been 
imprudent enough to marry rather late in life a 
young girl about whom nobody could find out a 
single thing ; which in a country village is a cross 
somewhat hard to bear, where one’s antecedents 
need much discussion in order to fully establish 
one’s position. And she in turn had been impru- 
dent enough to die and leave her legacy of three 
pretty daughters behind : a trinity of blessing, the 
doctor had learned to call it in time— though, poor 
man, he had looked upon his lot as a most hard 
and bitter one to bear, when the woe was fresh and 
green in his heart. 

Clarice Gallatin was the youngest child, and cer- 
tainly the beauty of the family — any one would 
have said that at the first glance if he could have 
peeped in the long sitting-room as we are doing, 
and viewed the girls together over their morning 
w’ork. The deep breathlessness of a summer day 
rested on everything. The garden outside was 
brilliant in light, but within there was grateful 
shade, the soft wind just puffing the lace curtains; 
the insects buzzing around the piazza vines, sleepy 
with sunshine, drowsily droned their experiences to 
each other in monotone; the whole air thrilling 
softly in this hush of subdued sound. The father 


4 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


of the family, a portly man with ruddy color and 
snow-white hair, was half-reclining in his easy-chair, 
his^eyes dreamily regarding the garden, and the 
paper that he had been reading dropped idly upon 
his knee. May, the eldest daughter, was busy with 
her needlework by the open window, Alice arrang- 
ing flowers and assisting at conversation from a con- 
venient distance outside on the piazza steps, and 
Clarice painting a bunch of wild blossoms on a 
delicate bit of pottery. 

Yes, certainly Clarice was rather pretty, though 
it all might be comprehended in that one word 
youth. The very newness of life, the look of ex- 
pectancy out of young eyes make them beautiful, 
whether they be black, blue, or gray. And Clarice’s 
were always a matter of dispute to strangers at 
first, they changed so suddenly ; and some people 
had been heard to declare positively they were 
brown, the darkest shade of brown. If Dr. pal- 
latin had been asked, he would have said “blue — 
heaven’s own color — her poor mother’s eyes ; ” but 
then the doctor was not to be accurately relied up- 
on in any statement regarding Clarice, and would, 
like a heathen, have included everything as heaven- 
ly that belonged to her. For the rest of the face 
she was like any other girl of the period, even to the 
blonde hair, the “ light fantastic toe,” as somebody 


AN INTRUDER. 


5 


has maliciously called it. She was slight, tall, 
rather graceful, with a hrusquerie that was almost 
pretty, simply because she was young, and an au- 
dacity that would have been utterly discourteous 
but for that very glamor of youth that hides so 
many palpable defects. She always gave one a 
sensation of how nice it was to be young, and have 
dresses and beaux and money, and a blind, doting 
old father, who thought she couldn’t do anything 
wrong. It didn’t seem possible that she could ever 
grow old, and have gray hairs and wrinkles like the 
rest of the world, but that she must go through life 
with the calm certainty that nothing commonplace 
should ever come to her. She had a good deal of 
undeveloped strength, but a good deal of nonsense 
about her too; too many arts and too much sim- 
plicity to make her a strictly lovely character ; and 
though she was not good or gentle enough to be 
beloved by all, her papa, poor misguided man, 
would have informed you that no more perfect 
character had ever lived upon the earth. Spoiled ? 
Oh, very likely. Some people would have told 
you that she was good simply because there was 
nothing to be bad about. She had always her own 
way, and those girls who' get the cream of life, as 
it were, and never know anything about the skim- 
milk underneath, can’t take half as much credit for 


6 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


goodness as those who are sweet-tempered and 
lovely without the cream. There were a great 
many of the villagers who did not like her, but 
there was about an equal proportion of those who 
did, though she v/as continually affronting some- 
body and then making up with him, or else laugh- 
ing him to very scorn for being so absurd as to 
mind anything she said or did ; although she was 
not without habits of occasional self-abasement, 
and sometimes took many deliberate steps toward 
the valley of humiliation. 

She went on very steadily with her work this 
morning, laying on little dabs of transparent color 
with a quick, firm touch, her eyes very bright and 
her lips pressed together, as if she were trying her 
best not to say sharp things, though she felt fully 
equal to that emergency or any other. The doctor 
-glanced at her now and again with an inquiring 
twinkle in his eye. 

“ Papa,” she said finally, dropping her work, as 
if she were tired of waiting for some one else to 
propound the question that had trembled on her 
lips ever since breakfast had been dispatched, 
what do you think of him ? Do you believe he 
will make up his mind to stay ; and what shall you 
do if he does? — and you are not going to take him 
in your office, are you ? ” 


AN INTRUDER. 


7 


** One question at a time, dear. Of whom are 
you talking, pray ? ” 

“ Of that odious young doctor, that presuming 
mortal who dares invade the sacred precincts of 
Briarly and steal papa’s practice away before his 
very eyes,” said Alice, answering for her. Clarice 
has done nothing but vex herself ever since he 
came. Dr. Lovell, some one said his name was. 
Papa, shall you take him with you as a partner?” 

“ Decidedly no, my dears ! ” and the doctor 
spoke warmly. “ I do not care to divide my prac- 
tice with any one for years to come. It is not 
sufficiently large for two, though a young man 
might extend it somewhat, I suppose. I don’t 
care to enter into such an arrangement with any 
one. Cheer up, Clarice ; you need imagine no 
deadly wrong done. I believe the young fellow is 
going to leave town shortly — at least I honestly 
advised his doing so, and I hardly think there is 
cause for you to be uneasy if I am not.” 

I detest him so, papa ! ” said Clarice in a half- 
whisper, holding up her face for him to kiss. 

And then the doctor hurried away to his office 
and left the children — as he still persisted in calling 
them, though May was four-and-twenty — to them- 
selves. 

Clarice went on painting or trying to paint, for 


8 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


half an hour after the rattle of her father’s gig had 
died away down the street. She tried her very 
best to bring her thoughts down to the sprig of 
ferns and bright meadow flowers she was copying, 
but her thoughts would go back to a few evenings 
before, and her accidental meeting in her father’s 
office with the young physician who had been try- 
ing to establish himself with Dr. Gallatin. He had 
been perfectly honorable, as her father had told 
her ; had inquired not only if there was a chance 
of success, but if the doctor would help him to get 
something of a foothold in the place, no matter 
how slight ; or, better still, if he would take him 
in his office and let him look forward eventually to 
a share of his large practice. It had annoyed her 
father — of that Clarice was quite sure — though ap- 
parently he had gotten over his first discomposure, 
still he was not such a novice in life that he could 
keep from a certain anxiety when he thought of a 
younger man, after a time, insidiously superseding 
him. Take her papa’s place, indeed ! As if any- 
body could do that ! 

So Clarice worked and pouted, knitting her pret- 
ty brow and vowing all sorts of mischievous things 
against an innocent young man, who, having just 
acquired his profession, was casting about most 


AN INTRUDER. 


9 


earnestly how to employ his time and talents, and 
honestly gain the bread and butter of life. 

Meantime Alice had made into bouquets the 
apronful of roses she had gathered, and May had 
put the last stitches in the delicate mending of the 
household linen, and now that the head of the 
family had gone, they made up their minds to be 
very busy until dinner-time. It was rather diffi- 
cult to determine what the work should be, especi- 
ally when there was nothing particular to be done. 
There was nothing ever to be done seemingly as 
long as May held the household reins in her slen- 
der hands. In that respect this eldest daughter 
was a woman of genius. She managed to live 
upon the income of a country physician as few 
could do upon double that sum. She thoroughly 
satisfied her father. It was very little in life he 
wanted,” he would often say to his children. Only 
to have his house and garden in perfect order, 
flowers blooming upon his table three times a day, 
that table not heavily loaded, nor even extrava- 
gantly supplied, but decked out daintily with pret- 
ty china and crystal, the linen always snowy white, 
and his daughters in pretty dresses sitting about 
him. It was such a cosy table! Only four of 
them, and May looked so demure and womanly 


lO 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


behind the old-fashioned urn, pouring her father’s 
coffee, and attending to his wants with that serious, 
staid deference that made May Gallatin seem even 
older than she was. She never allowed unpleasant 
things to come before her father. When he wanted 
quiet, and the last new book or magazine, he had 
but to retire to his library ; when he wanted home 
and his family, he had but to open the door and 
his children were about him, eager to please. He 
was never disturbed by bills and cares that seem 
to take the pleasure out of life, and are always vul- 
garly intruding in even the most refined places. 
No ; May prudently caused the domestic wheels to 
run so lightly that no one but herself knew the 
slips, and jars, and frequent oilings they had to re- 
ceive. What a thing it is to be disillusion — to be 
behind the scenes all one’s life. May Gallatin had 
become a mere automatic scene-shifter, as it were, 
in her father’s house. And no one dreamed of it ! 
Such a placid little woman — but sometimes the 
deepest currents run stillest, and depths are never 
found until they are sounded. 

May went softly about the room, flecking away 
the dust from the books and pictures, while Alice 
closed the blinds and made the room full of pleas- 
ant, subdued light — “just the right thing for an 
artist,” she said ; but Clarice put up her brushes and 


AN INTRUDER. 


II 


pushed her jar back, saying she was done for the 
day — she was tired to death of everything, and she 
couldn’t paint in a room that was dark as a church 
nearly all of the time. 

“Clarie is out of temper,” commented Alice; 
“ she has not said a pleasant word since papa went 
away.” 

I have not spoken at all,” said Clarice, conclu- 
sively. 

“ Then, speak now, dear, and tell me where to 
put my roses. Aren’t they beautiful ? Shall we 
have them on the center-table ? Oh, I wish we 
had some of those tall, light stands, all gilded, with 
chains and painted tops, like those Mrs. Abury has 
in her parlor for flowers. Let'us bring down the 
stand from your room. May, and see what we can 
do with it— and, oh, dear! if we only had some 
new covers on the chairs,” examining with an air 
of grave scrutiny the somewhat faded rep covering. 
“ How I should like to furnish this room all over 
again — ^wouldn’t you. May? I am so tired of red. 

I think I’d choose a soft brown next time.” 

“ But brown never wears well,” said practical 
May. 

“ Oh, don’t it ? then I think deep maroon, or this 
new shade of cardinal — no, deeper than cardinal.” 

“ It would be sure to wear,” said May, smiling. 


12 


THE OTHER HOUSE, 


Nothing fades in imagination. But I think, as 
long as things stay as they are, it is more our house 
—more full of the prese7ices that stay with the old 
furnishings. That is why a fire, or an auction, or a 
fashionably-minded young woman is such an afflic- 
tion in a family ; it disposes of too many memories. 
Suppose we put the sofa in this corner, and I’ll 
bring down my little table. Ally, if you like, for 
your flowers,” with that feeling of pleasure inherent, 
I believe, in all women, of pulling furniture about 
and changing the look of everything in a room. 

“ But we can’t make it new if we try,” said Clar- 
ice, dropping down by the table and leaning her 
chin upon her hands when they had finished, and 
sat down to take a survey. 

‘‘We wouldn’t want it new,” said May, softly; 
“ papa is so satisfied. He detests rooms that look 
as if insane housekeepers were caged in them. 
And above all, it is quite as good as we can afford.” 

“ I wonder if everybody stops to count the cost 
like May,” and Alice laughed. “ It is no consola- 
tion to me that we have as good as we can afford.” 

“ But people who have the whole of everything 
are never half as satisfied as those who have the 
pieces,” said May. “ When you get a thing, you 
know it’s done, and there’s nothing to look forward 
to; but where there is only a little to begin with, 


AN INTRUDER. 


13 


one seems to be making perpetual gains in life. I 
like things that have to be kept carefully, and 
turned, and patched — one keeps gathering up and 
laying by reminiscences, if nothing more. Why, 
there’s a large, well-darned place in the old nursery 
carpet up-stairs that I couldn’t part with, Alice, 
not for any money. I would as soon think of de- 
stroying the whole solar system at one fell swoop, 
as to change the familiar look of things up there. 
Hush, Ally; don’t whisk things about so — some 
one has opened the front door.” 

May drew off her gloves, Clarice dropped her 
hands in her lap, and sat regarding the door prim- 
ly, while Alice deposited the duster for safe keep- 
ing in May’s orderly work-basket. A moment 
after there was a gentle tap at the door, and Miss 
Clem Chantelling, from across the way, peeped in. 
Her face was quite flushed, and the pale lavender 
bow on her morning cap was decidedly out of line 
with her mild pug nose. She seemed quite breath- 
less and dropped on the first chair that she could 
find. 

“ Oh, my dears,” she exclaimed, “ I did not mean 
to come over so early ; but I have so many things 
to say : and as soon as I heard all the talk, I said 
to Harcou-rt, ^ Those poor children — I shall go 
straight over there and give them my sympathy 


14 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


and advice, even if they don’t take it.’ Clarice 
never would take it before ; but oh, my love, per- 
haps I might say something that you would listen 
to now ! ” 

I’ll listen to anything, dear Miss Clem, if you 
won’t put on such a dismal face. It is the most 
unbecoming thing you can possibly do to get wor- 
ried and try to be pathetic. If you would only 
scold me as I deserve, instead.” 

But, I can’t scold you now,” said Miss Clem, 
with an air of grave concession. Dr. Lovell is 
going to stay. He says he shall settle down in 
Briarly for life, most likely. Imagine my feelings 
when Harcourt told me at breakfast this morning.” 

But I don’t see how that can affect us,” said 
Clarice, bewildered. Everybody has papa.” 

A remark that was to be taken cum grano salis. 
Dr. Gallatin was certainly a man of whom every- 
body approved, both as a gentleman and a physi- 
cian but there were houses in the village where 
he was seldom, if ever, called, and people whom he 
had never visited professionally. 

“ Oh, but everybody don’t have papa, you will 
find, Clarie,” said Miss Clem, sententiously. “ Why, 
here is Mrs. Abury, your father’s most devoted ad- 
herent, and she told Harcourt that for her part • 
she hailed the advent of a new young practitioner. 


AN INTRUDER. 


15 


He has been spending" the evening there, and she 
finds him wonderfully clever. He certainly looks 
it ; tall, fine eyes, and such a good forehead. But 
you haven’t seen him, girls.” 

“ I have,” said Clarice. “ He called upon papa, 
and I was introduced merely. I thought him in- 
tensely disagreeable.” 

“ Oh, Clarie ! certainly not in manner,” cried 
Alice. He is a gentleman. I listened to him as 
he talked to papa. I think he talks well.” 

“ And depend upon it,” said Miss Clem, with an 
air of mild determination, he is going to take. 
Harcourt and I have talked it all over, and we 
think he will take ; and if your father could only 
be persuaded to make him a partner, he would 
cease to be a rival at once, you know ; he would 
cease to be a rival. He is young, has finished in 
Paris, he is sure' to be a success. And your father, 
my dears, much as I love him, is getting old.” 

“ I should think his years and experience would 
be like a suit of chain-mail to him then,” said May, 
who had not spoken before. “ I think papa’s 
friends will hardly turn against him now.” 

“ Not turn against him, my dear, but they may 
take up with somebody else. We all love change. 
Here’s Clarie, for instance, she’s always hunting up 
novelties; and why shouldn’t other folks do it.^ 


1 6 THE OTHER HOUSE. 

Why, the Lord himself never gives us two days 
alike in the year; look at the rain and mist, and 
frost and snow, and heat and drought, and eveiy" 
sunrise and sunset is something new.” 

“ But I don’t think the Lord has anything to do 
with this matter — this sending another doctor 
here,” interrupted Clarice, brusquely. “ I think 
there is a great deal laid .on the Lord that ought 
not to be. I notice when anything disagreeable 
happens, people are willing enough to say it is the 
Lord’s will. Now I am not going to insult Him 
in that way,” said Clarice stubbornly. 

“ My dear,” said Miss Clem, who was in the habit 
of making a potpourri of theology and secular 
affairs, and getting irretrievably mixed up in en- 
deavoring to separate them, “ I am sure Harcourt 
would think, you very irreverent, very irreverent 
indeed.” 

Oh, I don’t care for Harcourt ; I don’t care a 
fig!” cried Clarice impulsively. “He might say 
anything he pleased to me, and I would not listen. 
And papa never will take Dr. Lovell in his office ; 
he told me so this very morning, and that ends the 
whole matter. Miss Clem.” 

“ Then I might as well go home,” responded Miss 
Clem, with a feeling that whatever else she might 
be deluded into undertaking, she would never start 


AN INTRUDER. 


17 


on a mission again. ‘‘I had hoped you would be 
willing to do something for your dear father’s sake, 
and I am disappointed in you, Clarie.” 

‘‘You always are. Miss Clem,” said that auda- 
cious young lady ; “ but you haven’t seen my 
Beverly jug yet. Come and look at it, there’s a 
good creature, and forget that I have been cross 
and disagreeable. I have been working at it all 
the morning.” 

“ Oh, my dear, I don’t care for your Beverly 
jug half as much as I care for your willfulness. 
You have spoiled her from the beginning, May, 
and so I have always warned you.” 

Nevertheless she got up to look at Clarice’s bunch 
of wild flowers, and as she passed the glass she 
softly patted the rebellious cap-bow into its proper 
place. 

After all, it was very little use to trouble one’s 
self about the affairs of others. 

“ No one ever got any thanks for it,” sighed Miss 
Clem. “ I don’t know why I should expect more 
than other people in this world.” 


CHAPTER II. 


THE RECTORY, 


HE Rev. Harcourt Chantelliiig, whom Dr. 



^ Lovell had* at once called to see, lived, as 
I said before, in the old-fashioned white house 
directly opposite the Gallatins, the vestry of St. 
Michael’s never having felt rich enough to build a 
modern rectory close to its very modern little 
church. Miss Clem Chantelling, however, proved 
quite equal to this pecuniary problem, and solved 
it at once by unloosing her purse-strings and buy- 
ing this comfortable spot, into which she felt she 
had settled herself for life. 

There were only these two left out of a large 
family, the rector being the youngest, and Miss 
Clem the eldest. She was a cheerful little creature, 
of the rosy, frost-bitten apple type ; a vague and 
somewhat colorless reproduction of her brother, 
whom she adored, yet constantly held to stand in 
need of much advice and direction, both in parish 
affairs and out of them. Miss Clem’s ideas were 
about as difficult of analysis as the movements of 
that harmless domestic fowl, the weathercock, and 


(t8) 


THE RECTORY. 


19 


quite as uncertain of prediction; it was only fair, 
however, to infer that her intentions were strictly 
benevolent, though her heart, without any refer- 
ence to her head, generally guided her. She had 
been born and nurtured in a sound churchly at- 
mosphere, though by some mysterious power the 
hereditary principle seemed somewhat in abeyance, 
which difficulty perhaps was more than made up 
by its full development in her brother. If Mr. 
Abury, the senior warden, had been invited to give 
his opinion on the subject, he would have said 
very promptly that Mr. Chantelling’s principles 
were of the most approved order of advance ; 
while the junior warden, Mr. 'Leslie, simply ignor- 
ing the differences between high and low, broad 
and narrow Churchmanship, would have proclaimed 
him a good little fellow — a very clever little fel- 
low indeed — lacked stamina perhaps, but all that 
would come in due time — there was the real Simon 
pure article hidden away somewhere, he believed — 
all that was needed was something to bring it out.” 
On the whole, the rector might be called a general 
favorite. He was rather undersized, and by the 
side of his portly, well-conditioned wardens, looked 
somewhat effeminate and school-girlish, it must be 
confessed, though he was fully thirty-five years of 
age. But a man with no beard, sandy hair, and 


20 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


mild blue eyes, seen from behind thin, steel-rimmed 
glasses, with rather a hesitating manner, could lay 
no claim to a very powerful personality, except 
when launching plain truths from his pulpit — then 
there was no hesitation, and sometimes there was 
almost vehemence ; so that people were fully justi- 
fied in the assumption that there were two Mr. 
Chantellings — the one who preached and the one 
who didn’t. And almost everybody liked the one 
who preached. He might have his little manner- 
isms and formalities, a love for old books, china, 
and, hric-h-brac^ but it would never draw him away 
from that deeper, truer love of winning and saving 
souls. So when he preached, it was not a mere 
discharge of high-sounding rhetoric over the heads 
of his congregation ; it was a something that com- 
pelled his hearers to listen and resolve to lead dif- 
ferent lives ; though they failed in carrying them 
out, the plans were made all the same — and there 
is a great deal in a good resolve, even if it amounts 
to nothing more. Some people never have the 
grace to make a good resolution. 

Of course there were those in the village to 
whom Harcourt Chantelling could never address 
himself — rude, uncultivated souls, who required a 
coarser kind of mental pabulum ; but these were 
decidedly outside the pale of the Apostolic Church, 


THE RECTORY. 


21 


and generally chose to worship the Almighty in a 
style of dress that would scarcely have been in 
accord with the subdued elegance of St. Michael’s. 
There were two other churches on one of the side 
streets, which, like the nets of the Galilean fisher- 
man, drew in all manner of fish, and to judge their 
sincerity and ardor by the strength of their voices, 
they were at least quite as much in earnest as their 
High-Church brethren ; for every man, woman, and 
child who could sing, did sing. The quaint old Puri- 
tan hymns rang through the still streets with a zest 
and fervor that would touch the most stony-hearted ; 
though Dr. Gallatin, often driving home that way, 
found himself wondering why it should be a dis- 
tinguishing mark of denominational zeal to address 
a remote Lord, or one presumably deaf; but then 
Dr. Gallatin was never very clear in religious mat- 
ters. .Occasionally he used to drop in at the Sun- 
day morning service, just after the Litany, and 
once of a way in an evening, when he had not 
many professional engagements, or grew lonely in 
the stillness of his library. There was a generally- 
accepted feeling in the parish that the doctor was 
lax in his views, and that all ideas of worship had 
been given first to the wife who had died in her 
youth and beauty, and then vaguely handed down 
to the pretty daughters who clustered about his 


22 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


hearth. He liked Chantelling for a variety of 
reasons,” he would briefly explain ; “ chiefly be- 
cause he was a good fellow, a neighbor, and like 
one of his own family ; ” never in any outward way 
recognizing him as a spiritual adviser; and the 
good fellow and neighbor ” was far too retiring 
and timid to attack the doctor’s skepticism, which, 
after all, was a thing so subtle and undefined that 
it left no loophole of attack. But Miss Clem was 
not so modest, and often felt like resenting this 
opinion of the doctor’s, she having always felt that 
her brother was brought into the world expressly 
to wear lawn sleeves, and the only reason why 
he was not wearing them was an unpardonable 
humility, or rather obstinacy, on his part. Perhaps 
this innate conviction caused her to put on airs — 
as some of the common people called it — and gave 
her the unconscious condescension of a dethroned 
princess. But though the parish, with true parish 
independence’ nudged its neighbors’ elbow and 
smiled its almost audible smile, all agreed that the 
Chantellings were very delightful, and there was 
no pleasanter place to drop in of an evening or at 
odd times than the plain little rectory. 

It was an old house, and had never been a grand 
one, even at its best in- its youthful days. ,The 
rooms were all low, with big chimneys, and wide 


THE RECTOR Y. 


23 


recesses, and all sorts of odd angles and corners, 
that seemed simply brought into being to set all 
rules of architecture at open defiance ; and the fur- 
niture was quite in keeping with the house, ancient, 
shabby, yet full of a certain refinement and individ- 
uality that went far toward reconciling one to its 
unmistakable ugliness. In the first place there 
were books everywhere — the recesses were full of 
them from floor to ceiling — and books are a great 
point in any household. Indeed, the general 
make-up of the rooms on the first floor was that 
of vast book-cases, with a huge arm-chair here and 
there to lose one’s self in, and a few bits of choice 
pottery and engravings that came in by way of 
accident, as it were. In one of the dining-room 
windows Miss Chantelling kept her work-basket 
and crewels, and the tabby cat slept and dreamed 
away half of its life on an old velvet hassock in 
the sun, while all through the long winter bright 
flowers and trailing vines rioted behind the small, 
old-fashioned panes of glass, and a huge grate fire 
was insatiable in its demands for coals. Besides 
the dining-room, the rest of the house was all 
library. No one ever dreamed of such a thing as 
a parlor in the annex. Miss Clem .worked her un- 
healthy roses and pinks with fancy wools .on old- 
fashioned canvas, tended her canary, gave audience 


24 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


to her friends, lived and ate in the dining-room, 
which wore an habitual air of comfort. that made it 
more than beautiful in the eyes of half the parish. 
It was into this room she walked directly after her 
interview with the girls at the other house. She 
found her brother with a large volume on the table 
before him, hurriedly making extracts on the blank 
leaves of his note-book. He knew her light, 
nervous footfall, and did not look up ; but this 
apparent preoccupation had not the slightest effect 
on Miss Clem. She had her business to attend to, 
and it would be well for the world, she devoutly 
thought, if they attended to it as thoroughly as 
she. 

“ I am so vexed and annoyed,” she said, leaning 
both hands on the Rev. Harcourt’s shoulder, and 
thus stopping his writing without more ado. I 
have been over, just as I told you I should do, try- 
ing to persuade those girls into liking Dr. Lovell, 
and consenting to their father’s taking him in as a 
partner. Will you believe me, Harcourt, absolutely 
■ and truly Clarice laughed me to scorn ! ” 

“ Oh ! is that all ? ” said the rector, as if relieved. 
“Well, I knew she would. I told you so all 
along.” 

“Yes, but, my dear, you need not be disagreeable, 
if Clarice was. If there is one thing in life worse 


THE RECTORY. 


25 


than another, it is this saying ‘ I told you- so.’ You 
know you have often said to yourself — ‘ I told you 
so,’ or ‘ I knew how it would be ’ — when the fact is 
you don’t know a thing about it, positively not a 
thing. I call it willful perversity.” 

It was of no use protesting against Miss Clem’s 
way of putting things. The rector looked up 
helplessly. 

“ Call it anything you like, Clem,” said he, but 
pray let me finish my notes.” 

“ But who shall I talk to, Harcourt, if not -to 
you ? and why need you be disagreeable too ? I 
have had such a trying morning. I love those 
girls dearly — you know I do — just as if they be- 
longed to us ; but they never will take my advice. 
Harcourt!” as if a sudden bright idea had seized 
her, “ it is Alice who is the wise one of the family, 
after all. She has never anything to say ; and if it 
is wise to know how to speak, oh, my dear, how 
much wiser to know when to hold one’s tongue.” 

“ Decidedly,” admitted the rector gravely ; “ but 
May is very quiet.” 

Quiet ? ” and Miss Clem gave a mild satirical 
sniff. “ You do not know May Gallatin. She 
manages that whole family and rules them with a 
rod of iron, and they don’t know it — positively they 
don’t dream of it, my dear. Clarice thinks she 


2 


26 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


rules ; but there again is another extreme — Clarice 
talks too much. Now Alice never has anything to 
say, and I call her the wise one — the wise one, 
after all.” 

“ Yes,” said the rector, feeling for his pencil again, 
and peering about near-sightedly for his notes. 
^‘You know the old Persian proverb, ‘Speech is 
silver, but silence is golden.’ ” 

“ I know you mean that for my benefit,” she said, 
coloring and laughing good-naturedly ; “ but you will 
make no sort of impression on me, my dear. Now 
what do you suppose I would do in this stagnant 
place if I had not the other house and those poor 
motherless girls on my hands to worry over. The 
nights that I lie awake, planning for them ! And, 
Harcourt, the doctor is getting old ; a partner 
would be a great thing for him, and I am afraid if 
he don’t accept the opportunity offered, that he will 
have a formidable rival. Dr. Lovell is very hand- 
some.” 

“And you think the ladies will offer him their 
pulses quicker because of his good looks. Well, 
there may be something in that,” with his quiet, 
inward laugh. 

“ I might as well come to the point at once,” 
said Miss Clem, who usually sailed all about the 
harbor before she selected a fitting entranr^- 


THE RECTORY. 


27 


What I want is for you to use your influence 
with the doctor — there isn’t the slightest good of 
trying it with the girls. Why, Clarice said she 
didn’t care a fig for Harcourt — she called you that. 
Only think — her clergyman, and so much older too. 
Not a fig ! ” 

“ I am so glad to find it out,” said the rector, 
and then he laughed again. The best thing 
about Clarice is that she always will speak the 
truth.” 

But you don’t like it,, do you ? ” in a tone of 
profound incredulity. 

^‘Like it? Of course. Immensely. I like Clar- 
ice Gallatin more and more every day. She is 
going to develop into a fine character, if she is let 
alone.” 

Let alone ! And pray who touches her ? ” with 
more spirit than she usually chose to exhibit. 

She has been let alone all her life. I believe she 
thinks she might make the sun pause at her nod, 
like another Joshua, if she chose to try it,” resort- 
ing, as she usually did in all her dilemmas, to the 
Scriptures for her figures of speech and comparisons. 

My only wonder is that she hasn’t tried. That she 
hasn’t tried,” she repeated emphatically. “ Har- 
court, I have no patience with you ! ” 

So it seems,” and then he took Miss Clem’s 


28 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


soft, yellow little hand in his and patted it, and 
ended by touching it with his lips, which caused 
that versatile woman to descend from her stilts 
with her usual precipitancy. 

I don’t want to be a prying old sister,” she be- 
gan again ; it is bad enough to be the eldest — 
I am sure it is a position I never craved ; but being 
put here by the hand of Providence (a mysterious 
Providence, as we all say when we like to "question 
His ways, and don’t want to be irreverent, you 
know), what can I do but sometimes, with the 
privilege that years gives one — what can I do, I re- 
peat, but give my advice, and — my head was full 
of Dr. Lovell a minute ago,” she burst out, “ and 
now I can’t think of anything but Clarice. It was 
only the other day that she was a child, and now — 
Harcourt, you said yourself you liked her more and 
more every day — I am sure I never would have 
thought of it but for you — ” 

This time the rector dropped her hands and 
looked at her in open-mouthed amazement. 

“You see, dear,” she went on, trying to avoid his 
eyes, “ a girl, let her be as pretty as possible, needs 
something more than beauty to fit her for a clergy- 
man’s wife. And Clarice’s beauty may fade, but her 
willfulness never will. Depend upon it, Harcourt, I 
who love her know it. She would lead any man a 


THE RECTOR V. 


29 


lively career. Young people are sure to begin life 
with the idea of a holiday ; but Clarice does even 
more — she makes a perfect festa of it ; but when 
one is married, it so soon turns out to be a work- 
ing day.” 

Don’t fear for me, Clem,” said the rector, push- 
ing up his glasses, as if to see into her eyes more 
clearly. ‘‘ It is a very annoying thing to me that 
there must always be some supposition of falling in 
love if one attempts a friendship with a lady — a 
child in this case. I have not thought of a wife 
yet ; but there is more of Clarice than you think. 
One of these days she will develop into a beautiful 
character ; the elements are all there — it only needs 
the pressure of necessity. But as for me,” he added 
gravely and with a slight he^tation, “ I have the 
Church — I shall always have the Church,” and then 
he took up his pencil, and bent over his book, this 
time with a look on his face that told Miss Clem 
not to disturb him. 

What were her petty little aims and schemes 
compared to his great thoughts and lofty ambition ? 
Of course he was gathering materials for one of 
those beautiful sermons that steeped old Miss Clem’s 
soul in ecstatic bliss, and caused Mrs. Abury to nod 
her artificial flowers across the aisle to Mrs. Lewis, 


30 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


and say with a noiseless movement of her lips, 
“ How perfectly lovely.” 

Of course she could not disturb him again, so 
she took her unquiet thoughts into her little upper 
chamber, and sat down by the open window to 
dream. 


CHAPTER III. 


BOTH SIDES OF THE STREET. 

M ISS CLEM sat down in her little dimity rock- 
ing-chair, and abandoned herself to dreams. 
She was fond of the solitude of her own room, 
usually. It certainly was very sweet and quiet, with 
that hush that one always feels resting over small 
villages, with detached houses and broad gardens at 
the side, and possibly meadows at the back ; where 
one can hear swallows twittering about the eaves, 
and where sparrows sit tamely on the window-sills, 
and chirp and eye one, tilting their trim little 
heads wisely on one side, as if intent on passing a 
sound judgment on all that is going on under the 
sun ; where the lowing of cattle comes up from 
distant fields, and where, above it all, the soft lap- 
ping of running water strikes the key-note of nat- 
ure’s sweet song. The room, too, was bright with 
sunshine and gay with the songs of ’birds in the 
thick branches outside. A rose-bush that clam- 
bered about the window had shaken its snowy 
petals all over the carpet, and the wind kept drift- 

(31) 


32 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


ing in the subtile fragrance of the old-fashioned 
garden below ; but Miss Clem did not see the rose- 
leaves any more than she felt the delicate perfume. 
She did not care for such things just then — she 
was inwardly seeing the lonely days and years to 
come in her own home and at the other house, 
vaguely conscious that the path leading up to it 
was not as clear as it had been. 

She drew a long breath, folded her hands before 
her, and sat quite still. Much as she wanted to 
think, she could not ; only her mind kept grasping 
at little memories, just as we catch flitting glimpses 
of places and things as we whirl along in the rapid 
travel of to-day — little gleams and glimpses that 
afterward we can think over and make up into 
lasting pictures, if we will. As a general thing, she 
asked nothing better than to sit with her hands in 
her lap, living over the past, and dipping into the 
problems that the future spread before her; but 
to-day everything was different. And how foolish 
and blind she had been not to see how it would 
end. Could she expect her brother to be content 
with a lonely life like hers? For Miss Clem had 
been young once, and she had given up her dreams 
just for a baby boy — a little brother that had been 
placed in her arms more than thirty long years ago. 
The moisture came into her eyes when she thought 


BOTH SIDES OF THE STREET. 


33 


of it. And Harcourt had never known, never 
would know. And after all it had been no sacrifice 
— nothing but love and duty ; yet — and there was 
a little pang in her heart as she asked herself the 
question — would Harcourt do as much for her? 

But what so natural to happen as this very 
thing? A pretty young girl, slowly developing 
day by day, like a flower unfolding to the sun, 
thought Miss Clem, who was much given to trite 
poetical comparisons, and who, now that her own 
romances were at an end, liked nothing better than 
to watch this process of evolution in others. And 
a young girl was her delight ; but not Clarice — not ^ 
Clarice Gallatin. She loved her dearly, it is true ; 
but Harcourt, that intellectual and accomplished 
man, certainly deserved something far better than 
to be led about by a willful young girl, whose very 
caprices she trembled' to think were generally a 
most captivating thing to an unsuspecting man. 
Clarice Gallatin a clergyman’s wife! No; that 
were an utter impossibility ; it must be Alice, the 
wise one of the family, the one who knew when to 
speak and when to be silent. It might only be a 
delusion about Clarice, begotten of her own silly 
fears ; but the possibility of its ultimate reality had 
agitated her not a little. And then she. casually 
looked across to the other house, and noticed that 


34 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


May too was sitting in her little rocker by the 
window, and May was doing just what Miss Clem 
had been doing — taking a little retrospective view 
of life ; not dipping into the future very much, but 
building up a bit of a dream for all that. Miss 
Clem fancied that when she nodded and smiled, 
there was something wistful in her face. Had she 
too been troubling her head with vague possibilities 
of the future ? The whole thing was wrong from 
beginning to end. If it became necessary for the 
elder sister to permanently retire to the back- 
ground, who so capable of taking her place as 
Alice? But at the bare thought of that retrograde 
movement her old eyes overflowed with sudden 
tears. She looked hastily across at May again, but 
failed to see her. How could she see anything? 
For the first time in a long, long while. Miss Clem 
was crying bitterly. 

And May was crying too ; not for one reason, 
but many. Perhaps the sunshine, usually so sweet 
to her, dazzled her eyes and made them fill ; for 
certainly tears were there, though they did not 
fall. Miss Clem had given her a great deal to 
think over in her hurried morning visit. There 
was the natural anxiety about her father, first of 
all, and the dread that a younger man would usurp 
his place. Her life had been so quiet, so absolutely 


BOTH SIDES OF THE STREET. 


35 


uneventful, that she had begun to think it was al- 
ways to go on the same. Why should he grow old, 
and make it necessary for a younger man to take a 
rival position? He was hale and ruddy yet, in 
spite of his white hairs. He had many years be- 
fore him — years of active life it might be, it must 
be. Why could it not always go on the same? 
Now and again, it is true, the doctor would placidly 
discuss with his children the frailty of existence, or 
moralize a little upon the vicissitudes of life ; but 
this would probably be after a rare interval of 
listening to “ one of Chantelling s good sermons,” 
or when some patient in whom he took more than 
a friendly interest died and faded out of his life, 
and in the blank and hush after he was gone his 
soul had been led to ask grave questions. Yes, 
practical as May was in every other particular, she 
was impractical enough to believe that this tranquil 
happiness was as fixed as the laws of the Medes 
and Persians. Miss Clem had rudely jostled her 
and wakened her from her dream. 

And then, by a sudden transition, the slant rays 
of sunshine drifting in through the maple boughs 
carried her mind back to one summer day, almost 
four years ago, when she had wakened from an- 
other dream. She had been on a picnic with all 
the ^oung people of the village, and she had 


3 ^ 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


wandered away by herself when the purpling 
twilight had come on, and sat down alone to watch 
the last red rays of the sun, and the stars beginning 
to glimmer like glow-worms in the dark, deep blue 
above it, when some one came and sat beside her, 
and they had such a long, earnest talk. Not that 
there had been a word of love in it. No; it was 
far too solemn and earnest for that, and. it was not 
of this life they had talked at all, but of that other 
life that was far more beautiful than the heavens 
above them, and older than the stars. How near, 
they had seemed to each other as they talked. 
How her heart beat and her pulses quickened with 
a strange, new joy. She smiled when she thought 
what the highest type of manhood was to her. A 
delicate, fair-haired, slender figure ; a hesitating 
manner; a feminine hand ; a voice soft and low* as 
a woman’s, and yet how it stirred her heart when 
he spoke. If it were but a whisper, how she would 
have paused to listen. What would she not have 
done for his sake ; but he had never asked for any 
sacrifice — and that was all, quite all. 

And then she smiled again at her fragment of a 
memory, thinking, without a pang, how it had 
sanctified and made beautiful her whole life. For 
she was too young not to feel that life was very 
beautiful, even though she had once made a foolish 


BOTH SIDES OF THE STREET. 


37 


mistake, which now could never be set right. May, 
young as she was, knew life’s book had been closed 
for her ; its blank leaves all filled, and Finis written 
at the last page. No stormy opening chapters to 
begin with, no plots, no intrigues, no sorrow deep 
enough to mar its serenity. Her mother she 
scarcely remembered. The sweet face that Dr. 
Gallatin still thought of with a pang was only dimly 
outlined in this, his eldest daughter’s memory. 
She had, as a child, longed for a mother ; she had 
never known what it was to grieve for her. It did 
not often move May to smiles or tears to think that 
her volume could be closed and put away. There 
was another and more beautiful one yet to be writ- 
ten — a life that would go on forever and forever, 
until it was made perfect in the wide eternity of 
God’s love. It could not be the great end of life 
to marry and be given in marriage, when one had 
this to live for, and work for, and at last perhaps 
gain. Yet, has your heart never failed you when a 
task was placed before you to accomplish within a 
given time ? Have the heights never seemed high 
and far and impossible to reach, when you were 
looking up at them from the valley below ? And 
this was how May felt to-day. She did not want 
to go on ; she wanted to open her book and read a 


38 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


little way back — to make an idyl out of a memory, 
not a pang. 

She did not for one moment imagine that any 
other romance could creep into her life, now that 
this first and only one had been written and ended. 
It would not be her way. The romance that comes 
afterward, in middle life, is a much more difficult 
thing to manage than that of youth. Love casts 
the same glamor over everything, it is true, glorify- 
ing and deifying all it touches ; but the freshness, 
the newness, the very childish unquestioningness, 
are charms that cease with maturity. We learn to 
weigh our affections cautiously and prudently, bal- 
ancing the matters of loss and gain, without being 
aware of it. We call it the prudence of age, and 
smile furtively at the children about us, speaking in 
an apologetic fashion of the thoughtlessness of 
youth, and all the while both are romances in their 
way ; and the story — ah, well for us all — is one that 
will never, never grow old. 

Miss Clem and May Gallatin had both outlived 
their dreams, and now they were both crying over it. 


CHAPTER IV. 


PUZZLED. 

TT was a pleasant little party gathered together in 
the long parlor at the Gallatins— not a party in 
the society acceptation of the word, but that sort 
of thing of which people say, “ It is not a party at 
all, you know, only ourselves and the neighbors 
across the way, or at the other end of the street,” 
whichever it may happen to be ; such little social 
evenings being very frequent at the other house. 

There was Miss Clem, and her brother, of course ; 
and there were Mr. Fred Lewis, and the three Gal- 
latin girls and their father, and with him was the 
new-comer. Dr. Lovell, who had caused such a 
commotion in the Gallatin and Chantelling house- 
holds only the week before, but who, now that he 
had deliberately settled himself in Briarly, in spite 
of the elder doctor’s sound advice, and refusal to 
take him in as a partner, was to be met as a friend 
and fellow-physician, even though there might be 
much private pique and disappointment at the re- 
sult. He had come in to see Dr. Gallatin in his 
office, and after a little conversation, what more 

(39) 


40 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


natural sequence than for him to be invited in the 
drawing-room? — if the long, pleasant apartment 
where the family always sat could be dignified with 
such a title. It certainly looked very sweet and 
homelike to the stranger, who had scarcely known 
what it was to have a home since he went jnto col- 
lege life, foreign travel, and a medical career. A 
pleasant room, with open windows, and muslin cur- 
tains just softly stirring in the evening air; a big, 
somewhat disorderly center-table, with a crimson 
cover gleaming brightly in the lamp-light ; heaps 
of drawings, a panel or two, and some specimens 
of china piled upon it by a careless hand ; a bou- 
quet of roses and mignonette freshly gathered ; and 
a group of people, who- all felt perfectly at ease, 
and talked and laughed with one another, as if no- 
body were afraid of anybody. There was May upon 
the old-fashioned sofa, with Miss Clem by her side 
in a thin, black dress, with -the stereotyped relief 
of rose-colored ribbons at her throat and in her 
cap ; and Alice, who was a little given to attitudin- 
izing, in a low chair by them, her white hands 
crossed before her, and her white dress covering 
yards of space behind her, her face serene and her 
eyes gravely bent upon the little old lady, who was 
discoursing volubly upon things past and things to 
come. Mr. Fred Lewis was devoting himself to 


PUZZLED. 


41 


Clarie. He was the eldest son of the junior warden 
of St. Michael’s — a young man just dipping into 
law, and vaguely supposed to be eligible because 
of his parent’s unassailable position, rather than 
his own transcendent cleverness. He had an un- 
limited capacity for billiards and croquet, was quite 
at home in the matter of incipient flirtations, and 
liked nothing better than to lounge in the Gallatin 
parlors, and flirt with Clarie, if she would let him. 
But Clarie didn’t let him, and that made all the 
difference in the world. Since the life of the Gal- 
latins had become entangled, as it were, with the 
people across the street, she had apparently desired 
nothing more in the matter of society. But to- 
night she was unusually gracious to Mr. Fred, who 
monopolized her in an embarrassed, delighted sort 
of way, and talked more drivelling nonsense than 
ever — at least so the rector thought as he walked 
away, sauntering up and down the room with his 
hands behind him, interposing a word now and 
again. He wanted to talk with Clarie about his 
mission-school and the mill hands, and all the mi- 
nutiae relative to that work which was just now 
puzzling and troubling him ; and he was sorry 
to have any one come in and break up their usual 
family party. He was sorry, too, to see that for 
once Clarie was bent upon listening and replying 


42 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


to the interloper, as if she rather enjoyed his open 
admiration. 

I do wish you would sit down,” she cried at 
length, with her audacious little air of command 
and brusquerie., that Mr. Lewis would have thought 
captivating to a degree if she had only employed it 
toward him. “ I do dislike to see a man prowling 
about ! Dear Miss Clem, how can you get along 
with it ? ” 

Oh, very well,” said Miss Clem, secretly de- 
lighted to have Clarie find fault with her brother. 

Any one would think,” she went on, “ that he 
was making little inward recitals of Hamlet, with 
the tragic air and general look of the melancholy 
Dane about him. Just when we all feel like having 
a comfortable chat, too. It gives one such an odd 
sensation of ghosts, his coming out from the dark- 
ness at all sorts of unexpected corners. I do wish 
you could keep in the light ! ” 

“ Then I shall come and sit down by you,” said 
the rector, smiling. 

And then the door opened, and the two phy- 
sicians made their appearance. 

The ladies rose to greet the new-comer, but it 
was only May and Miss Clem who gave him a 
clasp of the hand. Alice bowed very quietly, and 
Clarice had not the grace to rise at all. She leaned' 


PUZZLED. 


43 


back in her cushioned chair, looking over a pile of 
engravings with Mr. Lewis, and was apparently so 
interested as ta be almost unconscious of his pres- 
ence. But Miss Clem, who had ideas of her own, 

9 

was even more effusive than usual. 

I am so glad you came in this evening,” she 
said, making a place for him on the low crimson 
sofa. Perhaps you understand all about old china, 
and can tell us if this cup is really good. We shall 
have a class and order for china presently, just as 
we have for our plants, with a manner of arriving 
at right conclusions quite equal to counting up pe- 
tals, stamins, and pistils, if we keep on. Some one 
sent this to my brother, and I fancied it was a little 
out of the usual way, or there would not have been 
such a fuss made over it. It was packed in cotton- 
wool and much tissue-paper, and was bought at 
some old shop in London ; but perhaps you do not 
care for such things. Dr. Lovell. Mr. Chantelling 
has a mild mania, and indeed it is quite fashionable 
nowadays.” 

“ But I suppose Lovell has seen Italian faience^ 
while we have not the faintest conception of its 
real meaning,” added Dr. Gallatin. 

I may have seen it,” replied the young man. 
“ I really don’t remember. I was three years 
abroad, but I scarcely think I thought of it once. 


44 


THE 0 THER HO USE. 


Pray don’t tell any one, if it was such a shocking 
thing ! ” as he noticed Clarie’s lifted eyebrows and 
pretended look of astonishment. “ It would be 
sacrilege to put such a dainty article to absolute 
use ” — taking up the cup. It is made merely to 
feed the eye and delight the soul, I suppose.” 

I really can not say,” said Clarie, with an as- 
surance that she was addressed, although Miss 
Clem had begun the conversation. “ I fancy that 
people who use such grand china, if they ever do 
desecrate it by family use, must feel as if they were 
making a sort of lyric out of the meal. I wonder 
how it would seem to subsist upon a poem as one 
would on potatoes. I am afraid I should turn 
transcendentalist at once.” 

“ It wouldn’t be a strictly healthy diet,” re- 
marked Mr. Lewis, twirling his long mustache 
and feeling out of his depth when poems were men- 
tioned. He was a vigorous young man, with vague 
literary ideas, and he had learned to look upon 
poetry as a sickly sort of nutriment, quite un- 
worthy a young fellow who had on one oc(!asion 
held a stroke oar and was possessed of no mean 
gifts in handling a cue or mallet. Now I under- 
stand all this sort of thing better,” he said, touch- 
ing one of Clarie’s panels which he had been exam- 


PUZZLED. 


45 


ining just before the doctor came in. “ I call this 
very pretty, don’t you ? ” 

It was a bunch of meadow grasses, white and yel- 
low daisies, sprays of golden rod, and a little branch 
of trailing clematis, tinted with a delicate hand 
and true fidelity to nature. 

That is very good,” said Dr. Lovell, bending 
over and looking at it with that air of grave profes- 
sional interest that suits medical men to a charm. 

As he stood there bending forward in the full 
light of the lamp, Clarie noticed him more closely 
than she had ever opportunity before. He was a 
tall, well-built man, of thirty years perhaps, with a 
rather massive figure, and possessed of a certain 
slow grace of movement that was not common. • 
For that matter nothing about him was common. 
The merest casual observer, if he had a soul, knew 
that another soul, strong in earnest endeavor, spoke 
to his as he passed. There was much to be read in 
the signs of repression about the firm mouth— re- 
pressed ambition, perhaps even love — which with 
such a man might possibly leave a trace the very re- 
verse of benediction. A face hard to decipher, yet 
interesting as a study, or problem. He had a deferen- 
tial, bending attitude in listening, and the steady look 
out of his dark eyes gave his replies impressiveness ; 
even though it were but a monosyllable, the air of 


46 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


deference invariably accompanied the tacit agree- 
ment. His voice, too, was habitually rich and so- 
norous, yet capable of much modulation, and at the 
bedside of a sick woman or child, would be sweet 
and soothing beyond expression, Clarie thought, 
watching him with a hot feeling of dislike growing 
stronger in her heart. 

‘‘Yes, that is a nice little thing,” her father was 
saying ; “ a very nice little thing indeed, Lovell. 
My little girl painted that for my birthday, and I 
intend to hang it in the office gver the mantel, 
where I can see it whenever I choose to look up.” 

“ Then Miss Gallatin is not the artist of the 
family,” said Dr. Lovell, turning to May, by whose 
side he had found himself. 

“ No, frankly; I don’t think the reproduction of 
daisies and grass on a piece of black wood a great 
object in life,” replied May, smiling. “ I prefer see- 
ing them on the meadows and roadsides, and if I 
want them in the house, I have but to pick them.” 

“Yes, in the summer,” said Miss Clem; “but 
how about winter? ” 

“ Oh, I can live on a memory six months.” 

“ Is any woman constant enough for that ? ” 
inquired Dr. Lovell, with the air of one about 
to make a diagnosis. 

“ At least the memory could serve me until the 


PUZZLED. 


47 


Spring comes again,” she reiterated smilingly. I 
would always prefer a memory to a servile copy.” 

“ I fear you are a heretic about art, Miss Gal- 
latin.” 

“ Is it art ? ” she asked simply. “ I am sure I 
don’t know. I love nature — I haven’t dreamed of 
anything higher.” 

As if anything could be higher ! ” said the 
father, interposing. May, how strangely you do 
put things ! But, Lovell, we are all heretics — 
heretics about everything — you will find that out 
very soon.” 

“ But not to like beautiful things is worse than 
being heretical,” said Dr. Lovell, looking at Clarie 
instead of the picture ; “ it is downright skepticism 
and infidelity.” 

“Papa,” said the young girl, reaching out her 
hand for the picture, “ I shall not let you put it in 
your office at all, if you bring me into discussion this 
way. I shall hang it up-stairs where you can enjoy 
it in solitude, since you say you do enjoy it. If I 
had not made you a present of it, I should throw 
it into the fire at once. There ! do not say any- 
thing more about it to-night. Miss Clem, Mr. 
Lewis has given me such a piece of news. Miss 
Abury is engaged. I tell you at once, you see, be- 
cause you could never guess.” 


48 


THE OTHER HOUSE, 


** Engaged ? ” said Miss Clem, immediately inter- 
ested, turning her head on one side and eying the 
bit of news as a contemplative wren w'ould a worm. 

Well, really, it is no surprise to me ; she is a sweet 
girl — a very sweet girl, indeed. But certainly it is 
to no one whom we know.” 

Ah', but it is,” replied Clarie. Papa, guess.” 

‘‘ Indeed, my dear, I think I am even worse at 
guessing than Miss Clem.” 

Then I shall astound you at once-. Mr. Har- 
rison.” 

“ Mr. Harrison 1 ” 

They all spoke together, and then Miss Clem 
said faintly, “Why, Mr. Harrison is a widower, 
and he is quite as old as I am, Harcourt. What 
could she find to love in such a man?” 

“ I did not say she was in love,” said Clarie ; “ I 
^simply announced that she was engaged to be 
married.” 

“But, upon my word! By Jove, now!” said 
young Lewis; “ I think the two things ought to go 
together; don’t you?” 

“ You are theoretic,” laughed the doctor. “ Clarie 
is practical ; it makes all the difference in the world, 
puss,” pinching her cheek. “ But I am surprised. 
Why, Harrison is nearly as old as — ” 

“ I,” interpolated Miss Clem, rubbing the palms 


PUZZLED. 


49 


of her faded small hands together. “ And he isn’t 
even rich ! ” 

“ He has a competency — that is enough/’ said 
Clarie again ; “ there are a dozen reasons why she 
should marry him.” 

One will do,” said the rector. If she loves 
him that is quite enough.’ 

“You are behind the age, Mr. Chantelling,” 'said 
Clarie, with youthful benignity. 

“And you are the most absurd little cynic! 
Don’t you believe that girls sometimes fall in 
love ? ” 

“ Oh, yes ; all the sentimental ones,” throwing 
her head languidly against the high crimson chair. 
“ She has my sympathy — it is my normal condi- 
tion. I am always in love — with papa,” she sup- 
plemented after a little pause. 

“ Then you should not blame Miss Abury if she 
follows your example, and falls in love with one old 
enough to be her father,” said Mr. Lewis. “ You 
may do the same thing yourself. Miss Clarie, one 
of these days.” 

“ Perhaps,” said Clarie, making a little screen of 
her flimsy handkerchief and holding it before the 
lamp to shade her eyes. “ But I have been pos-^ 
sessed with the idea that all the interesting ones 
belong to. an extinct species, like Darwin’s missing 
3 


50 


THE OTHER HOUSE . ' 


link, for instance. Just think of living with such a 
person always ! To have him before one three hun- 
dred and sixty-five breakfasts, dinners, and teas, for 
a year ! I prefer papa.” 

Dr. Gallatin rubbed his hands softly and gave a 
little happy laugh. His daughter’s fondness, not 
to say blind idolatry, always touched him and gave 
him, without being aware of it, a little pleased 
moisture about the eyes ; but the rector only 
laughed his low, nervous laugh. 

“You forget me entirely, Clarie.” 

“ I don’t forget you at all,” said that young lady, 
with calm assurance. “You would be the last man 
on earth for a woman to fancy.” 

^ “ I am afraid that is true,” and he gave way to a 
half-sigh. 

‘‘ Oh, I beg your pardon,” said Clarie, hastily. 
“ I didn’t mean quite that. I — I only think there 
is one man in the world for me, and that is papa.” 

“ I am sure Harcourt has not committed himself 
that you need refuse him before us all,” said Miss 
Clem, with a throb of absolute delight in her old 
heart ; and then there was a general laugh at poor 
Clarie, who blushed genuinely, like any young girl 
who feels she has just overstepped the bounds of 
propriety. 

“ I wish he had stayed away,” she thought, glanc- 


PUZZLED. 


51 


ing up at Dr. Lovell. “ One can get along very well 
with Fred Lewis, but this disagreeable man, sitting 
bolt upright before me, as if he were a soldier on 
guard; I detest him cordially, that is just what 
I do.” 

But Dr. Lovell fortunately could not know her 
thoughts. He was looking at her, and wondering 
if people considered her beautiful. He certainly 
did. She had a grace and piquancy that sur- 
prised him. She surprised him in other ways, too, 
perhaps by contrast with her sisters, who were de- 
cidedly more polite for one thing. Dr. Lovell was 
a man wholly absorbed in his profession; a man 
who cared little for society, and less for ladies than 
anything under the sun ; but a faint thrill stirred 
his senses as he looked at Clarie, and felt for the 
first time an artist’s delight in a touch of beauty. 
The life which he had laid out for himself was one 
of toil and study, but for a brief moment he was 
conscious that for a man of weaker mould than he 
there might be some danger if he allowed himself 
to see her often. The young girl had made an im- 
pression instantly, although she was scarcely aware 
of it as she sat in the full light of the lamp, its rays 
streaming upon her coils of rich, red-gold hair, 
white, clear-cut features, and low, broad forehead. 
He thought he had never seen anything more love- 


52 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


ly, unless it might be one of the faces found in old 
Roman galleries ; not of saints, no — something far 
removed from that — but a siren it certainly might 
be. Then, as she lifted her deep violet eyes to his 
for a moment, with a glance swift and sudden, he 
concluded it was a siren — those pictures of sirens in 
medieval ages — that she resembled. 

Clarie was not given to blushing, but for the sec- 
ond time that evening the color surged over her 
face as she saw his intent gaze, her own eyes widen- 
ing slowly, then defiantly, as she recovered herself 
in an instant, and turned to Mr. Chantelling. She 
*did not trouble herself to look again at the strange 
doctor, but devoted herself so wholly and entirely 
to the rector, that Miss Clem was caused much se- 
cret embarrassment and annoyance. 

But Dr. Lovell did not leave the house until he 
had made one more attempt to engage Clarie’s at- 
tention. He deliberately crossed the room, and 
asked her to sing something before he left. 

I play very little,” she said coldly ; and as for 
singing, pray excuse me. Mr. Chantelling will tell 
you that I am pledged to old-fashioned psalmody 
only. I sing at Sunday-school and in church.” 

“ I will say good-night, then,” he said, bending 
before her a moment with his air of habitual defer- 


PUZZLED, 


53 


ence. “Thanks for a very pleasant evening, and 
good-night.” 

He went out a moment after with Dr. Gallatin, 
who took his arm and stood with him on the porch, 
saying a few unimportant last words ; but the door 
had scarcely closed when he heard a rich, full voice 
swell out upon the evening air, in the slow, ringing 
recitative of an old hymn that he loved : 

“ Flee like a bird to the mountain, 

Thou that art weary of sin.” 

He stood upon the vine-shaded porch, looking 
straight in upon the room he had just left, and 
Clarie sitting at the piano, with Mr. Chantelling 
standing beside her. Her eyes were slightly raised 
to his ; they were the eyes of a siren no longer, but 
a saint this time, full of soft light and beauty as 
she sang the sweet, pathetic words. He heard the 
three verses to the end, then went away wondering 
why she had refused to sing for him, why she dis- 
liked him, and why she made no attempt to con- 
ceal her dislike. He was not angry; he cared too 
little for a woman’s opinion to allow his temper to 
be ruffled by it ; he only felt puzzled and cha- 
grined, as any young man naturally would without 
a clew to explain the matter. 

He would have been still more puzzled if he 


54 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


could have seen Clarie Gallatin an hour or two 
after, when she had lit her father’s lamp and put 
up her soft cheek to him for her accustomed kiss. 

“ You were rather rude to young Lovell to-night, 
Weren’t you, dear?” he asked, putting a detaining 
arm around her waist and turning her face up to 
his so he could look into her eyes. 

“ I hope so ! ” said Clarie, coloring violently. 
“ Then he will not come here again. The idea of 
that odious man mounting guard over me as if I 
were a prisoner he had just vowed should not es- 
cape ! What have I done that he should stare at 
me all the evening. I’d like to know?” 

I thought young girls liked that sort of thing.” 

‘‘What sort of thing? Mounting guard ? No, 
indeed ! Nobody ever treats May like that. Why 
should I be singled out. I’d like to know?” 

This she said with a little laugh, though her eyes 
were not as full of mirth as usual ; but when she 
saw how annoyed was the expression of her father’s 
face, she drew him back upon the sofa, leaning her 
cheek against his arm, and taking possession of the 
hand which rested upon his knee. 

“ Has anything happened ?” she asked. “ Have 
you anything that worries you ? ” 

“ I am afraid a new doctor coming into the vil- 
lage is going to make a difference, after all,” con- 


PUZZLED. 


55 


fessed the father; slowly. ‘‘ Mrs. Abury has called 
him in already.” 

“ Mrs. Abury ? And she one of our oldest 
friends ! I hate him! ” she added, with a petulant 
half-sob. I think he might have stayed where he 
belonged, instead of coming here to worry the best 
and dearest of fathers. Why don’t you go and see 
Mrs. Abury?” 

“ Because, dear, it is not the way of the world, 
and I have too much pride.” 

‘‘ Then I will go 1 ” she cried, with flaming cheeks. 

I will tell her she is deceitful, and mean, and un- 
der-handed ; that she thinks no more of casting off 
an old friend than an old shoe.” 

^‘Stop, stop 1 You will do nothing of the kind. 
For my sake you will behave to Mrs. Abury as if 
we did not care about the matter.” 

‘‘ But it does me good to relieve my mind,” ar- 
gued the girl, burying her face upon his shoulder. 

^‘What a hopelessly unreasonable, faithful little 
partisan I have in you, Clarie,” said Dr. Gallatin, 
smiling. “ But I do not think I can afford to quar- 
rel with Lovell, no matter how much I^may dislike 
his coming here, nor, my dear, have you quarrel 
with him, for that matter. He is a high-toned, 
honorable young fellow; and I dare say, with all 
the advantages of foreign education,^ youth, and 


56 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


much professional enthusiasm, he is better calcu- 
lated to-day to be an ornament to the profession 
than I am. My child, I am growing old. I don’t 
know anything about modern ideas, reforms, etc. 
The world hasn’t been standing still, and I am 
afraid I have. Dr. Lovell could teach me to-day.^’ 

Papa, I am astonished at you — underrating 
yourself, and putting a stranger before you in that 
way ! Perhaps if you had taken him in as a part- 
ner it would not have been such a dreadful thing, 
after all. He couldn’t work you very much harm 
if you had him under your thumb, as you have — 
me, for instance.” 

You ! ” and the doctor laughed in his old hearty 
way again. There never was a man so thoroughly 
ruled by his family ! But go to bed, dear, and try 
and treat Lovell more politely next time. I like 
him, remember.” 

And I do not,’’ said Clarie, rising and perform- 
ing a mock courtesy. “ It makes all the difference 
in the world, papa. A stranger — young, untried — 
Oh ! you need not tell me about his new ideas and 
reforms, as if he could raise the profession, when 
you’ve been all your life trying to do it, and have 
grown gray in the service ! It isn’t Mrs.. Abury 
alone — it is everybody; the old cry will never die 
out: ^ Le roi est mort I vive le roi!'” in a‘ sudden 


PUZZLED. 


57 


acc}s of passion. “ I have no patience with the 
world or anybody in it. Good-night.’' 

She took up her lamp, and dashed up the old- 
fashioned staircase, but paused at the first landing 
to turn back and smile and wave her hand. 

It isn’t worth being angry about, papa,” she 
called out. “ Pray let us never mention the subject 
again. Good-night.” 


CHAPTER V. 


DREAMS AND REALITIES. 

FTER that evening at the other house, the 



rector met Dr. Lovell in the street many 
times, as was unavoidable, considering the size of 
the town and the concentration of all respectability 
within the restricted length of its one wide avenue. 
The two young men merely bowed first, then by 
dint of seeing each other so often, grew to inclina- 
tions a little more friendly, until at length they 
were frequently seen arm in arm in deep conversa- 
tion. Mr. Chantelling thoroughly liked the new- 
comer, and there were a great many points of sym- 
pathy between thern. For one thing, they were 
nearly of an age ; both in the- glory and fullness of 
their life ; both with lofty yearnings of the future ; 
knowing that life held great, solemn secrets, and 
wondering vaguely how they would unriddle them ; 
each full of reform — one longing to regenerate the 
world, a physician of souls ; the other longing to 
regenerate science, a physician of the body. How 
different, and yet how one at heart they were with- 
out being aware of it. 

But for seme reason or other, in spite of all this 
(58) 


DREAMS AND REALITIES. 


59 


friendliness, Dr. Lovell did not make his appear- 
ance in church until several weeks after his entry 

% 

into Briarly, and Miss Clem had ample time to in- 
dulge in a little occasional wonderment, over her 
brother’s coffee, as to the reason of this conspicuous 
absence. He had never vouchsafed any explana- 
tions, neither making pretences of being busy pro- 
fessionally, nor assuming airs of general indiffer- 
ence, and at the end of about a month astonished 
Miss Clem nearly out of her senses by appearing at 
the evening service. The old sexton, with a scru- 
pulous deference to strangers, gave him a seat in 
the body of the church, nearly opposite the Galla- 
tin pev/, and in full range of the keen eyes of Miss 
Clem, who occupied a seat in one of the transepts. 

The young man thought it as pretty a little in- 
terior as he had ever seen, that church of St. 
Michael’s, in the sweet midsummer evening, and 
wondered vaguely to himself why he had not come 
before. The clusters of wax candles about the 
altar threw just enough light around to bring out 
the rich crimson of the carpet and lecturn covering, 
and leave the rest of the chancel in a soft gloom. 
The pews were all open and cushioned with the 
same deep shade of crimson, and the font, in front 
of the reading-desk, had some fair, white lilies and 
tall, blooming plants in it, gleaming whitely against 


6o 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 

the dark red glow. On festivals and saints' days 
there was always a cross, and the whole church was 
heavy with the perfume of flowers — for flowers and 
music were considered as decided accessories to 
worship, though the two congregations in the back 
street smiled as significantly when this fact was 
canvassed as if those double elements were verit- 
able scraps of the scarlet woman's robe. 

The congregation came in softly ; there was a 
subdued tread of feet, a dull rustle of silk sweeping 
over the carpet, the usual stir of taking places and 
opening books, and then a plaintive strain of melody 
stole from the recess by the chancel. He could not 
see who played the instrument, but he had been 
told it was Clarice, and so, without being aware, 
the thought of her slender white fingers among the 
keys interested him in the music. This swelled 
presently into a flood of tumultuous sound as the 
vestry door opened ; and the surpliced boys entered 
two by two, followed by the rector with bent head 
and folded hands. 

May Gallatin sat in one of the front pews, facing 
the chancel, when they came in, and as Mr. Chan- 
telling knelt at the altar rails, she dropped her eyes 
upon her book, longing to kneel too and hide her 
face in her hands, as little Miss Chantelling always 
did when her brother prayed, but not daring before 


DREAMS AND REALITIES. 


6i 


the whole congregation. No one ever did that but 
the sister. It seemed a tacit understanding that 
those two, contrary to all ideas of advanced church- 
manship, should monopolize the brief space of 
time given to private devotion, from which others 
were excluded. And although Dr. Lovell (it might 
have been from mere force of habit — one can never 
tell) bent his head gracefully over his book, he 
gave a little sidelong glance under his long eye- 
lashes, contriving to read that look on May’s facej 
which she had thought it utterly impossible for any 
one to decipher. 

And then the service began, and everybody 
seemed intent on his or her devotions, except Miss 
Chantelling, who, having caught a glimpse of the 
young doctor’s face, fell to studying it, all unaware 
that for once in her life she was paying no atten- 
tion to her brother’s ringing voice, nor the lessons 
his lips repeated. She saw him glance at the Gal- 
latin pew and the two girls— by far the nicest-look- 
ing girls in the whole neighborhood — and without 
the least intention on her part, her foolish old heart, 
brimful as it could be of romance and tenderness, 
began to conjure up plans and dreams that were only 
to be equaled by the plans and dreams of her early 
youth. Three girls, and none of them married, not 
even eijgaged ! And Dr. Gallatin, kind father and 


62 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


careful provider as he had always been, could not 
be expected to go on living forever, wise and benefi-^ 
cent as such an arrangement would certainly prove 
for the daughters. And then, what were they to 
do ? Matrimony was the only groove into which a 
young girl’s life should run, and here was the very 
opportunity. True, her own example disproved 
the fact ; but then Miss Clem at fifty owned 
that life had been somewhat of a failure, and 
not quite what her fancy had painted it would be 
in her youth. And here was a young man, well 
connected, a physician withal, to step directly into 
the doctor’s place — a son, a brother, and a husband; 
but which girl should it be, pray ? May was a trifle 
too sedate and old, and Alice, who was very sweet 
and winning, was certainly more suitable for a 
clergyman’s wife — indeed the only one that she 
felt she could possibly entrust with tke Rev. Har- 
court’s affections ; so Alice was quite out of the 
question — as good as engaged, since Miss^Clem in 
her own mind had given her away long ago. And 
Clarice was too young, too positive by far, too well 
content to hold the reins and constitute herself the 
family Jehu on all occasions. It must be May, after 
all. “And pray why shouldn’t it be May?” she 
asked herself, and then suddenly remembered that 
she was in church, as she was desired to remember 


DREAMS AND REALITIES. 


63 


Upon her knees “ all sorts and conditions of men,” 
when her heart absolutely refused to have anything 
to do with but one. It was certainly a very extra- 
ordinary proceeding on her part, and Miss Clem 
bent over her book, sternly following the prayer, 
mentally resolving to wait until she was out of 
church to perfect her plans. 

But scarcely had the anthem begun when she 
took up the train of thought just where the prayers 
had broken it. It surely could not be wicked to 
let her thoughts w^ander a little during the singing, 
which to Miss Clem seemed as fashionable and 
elaborate as a rare interval of Italian opera in our 
chief metropolis. The psalms were charted an- 
tiphonally by the rector and the chubby-faced, sur- 
pliced boys ranged each side of the chancel ; there 
was an anthem that was always considered a feature 
by itself, a duo between the rector and Clarice, who 
played the little organ behind the stiff crimson 
moreen curtains, and whose sweet voice sounded 
like a lark’s, high and clear through the long aisle 
and open roof. Of course it could not be wicked 
to divert herself with a little castle-building when 
the two voices, with which she was so familiar, took 
up the sweet burden of David’s song, Like as the 
hart desireth the water-brooks, so longeth my soul 
after Thee, O God ’’—and yet. 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


.. 64 

She settled herself back in her pew, and put her 
lavender-gloved fingers over her eyes to shut out 
the world and all vain thoughts ; but she shut in, 
by a strange mischance, a flitting glimpse of Dr. 
Lovell’s face turned toward the Gallatin pew again, 
and it was vain for the innocent schemer to pro- 
ceed with further devotion. It would be in every 
way such a suitable thing for May, and such an un- 
told comfort to Dr. Gallatin. There would always 
be some one in the other house then — no danger 
of new neighbors. Dr. Lovell would take up the 
practice juat as it was left to him. As to May’s 
not liking him, it would be a simple absurdity. 
Such a very — well, not exactly handsome man — but 
certainly a very prepossessing person. A Church- 
man too — one could always tell — the very way that 
he held his Prayer-Book showed that he was en- 
tirely familiar with public, if not with the entire 
spirit of personal devotion ; and certainly no young 
person could have been more truly attentive to her 
brother than Dr. Lovell in the one brief visit he 
had paid to the annex. 

So by the time that the rector had fairly launch- 
ed his sermon, his meek little sister, with her hand 
still shading her eyes to tone down the dazzling 
vision, had married May Gallatin to Dr. Lovell, 
had seen the elder practitioner respectably interred, 


BJ^EAMS AND EE A LI TIES. 


65 


shed a few natural tears on his grave, and disposed 
of everything and everybody but Clarie to her en- 
tire satisfaction. That young woman was a sore 
trial to more than Miss Clem, that evening. She 
was essentially a young person who, to use Miss 
Clem’s own words, would not stay put. One might 
as well try to keep a ball of mercury down at zero, 
with the dog-star in the ascendant, as Clarie Galla- 
tin under the ordinary restrictions of social life. 

Miss Clem was so full of her new plans that she 
could scarcely wait for the benediction to be pro- 
nounced and hurry out in the darkness after May, 
as she lingered to shake hands with some of her 
neighbors on the porch steps. 

Don’t be in such a hurry, dear,” she said, put- 
ting a detaining hand on the young girl’s arm. “ I 
want you to go home with me to-night. Harcourt 
will be sure to stay for a talk with Mr. Lewis about 
the next vestry meeting, and I want you to lend 
me your arm. Ah ! Dr. Lovell, this is a lovely 
evening ; so glad to see you in church,” she mur- 
mured with her usual air of unconscious condescen- 
sion, extending the tips of her lavender fingers to 
him. 

And then, while he stood irresolutely, saying 
ordinary commonplaces to the two ladies, who 
should come sweeping down the aisle but Clarie, 


66 


. THE OTHER HO USE. 


and all Miss Clem’s possibilities were made an end 
of in a moment by that vigorous young woman, 
who brushed past him, with her music roll, like a 
sword of justice, in her hand. Naturally Dr. Lov- 
ell stepped forward, offering his arm to Miss Clem, 
but Clarie, as usual, interfered. 

Thanks,” she said, giving him a little glance 
out of her blue eyes, “ but we don’t need any one. 
I am here to see to the whole party, and it is quite 
out of the usual line to accept an escort. It is a 
mere step. The timidity of women in general, and 
Miss Clementina Chantelling in particular, is a con- 
tinual revelation to me, though I’ve had a constant 
example before me ever since I’ve been old enough 
to lisp your name,” tucking her under her arm with 
perverse audacity, and without a moment’s hesita- 
tion hurrying her down the steps and under the 
shadow of the trees, so swiftly that the good 
woman had scarcely recovered her breath when 
she was in the street. 

All the stars were shining out of the deep, in- 
tense blue, with that far-away remoteness that 
makes them seem so many glow-worms in the dark, 
and the moon, gliding like a ghost over the tops 
of the trees, deepened the mystery of the pathway 
before them, and turned the rows of unassuming 
gabled and hipped roofs into picturesque silhou- 


DREAMS AND REALITIES. 


67 


ettes against the sky. But Clarie, with. Miss Clem’s 
hand tucked under her arm, did not stop to think 
of the beauty of the night ; she was laughing with 
inward delight as she noticed her old friend’s re- 
luctance. 

“ I feel like asking you to repeat that prayer for 
deliverance from a great danger, Miss Clem,” she 
said flippantly. “ Do you know that insufferable 
new doctor was about to walk off with you him- 
self?” 

“ And pray why should he not ? ” asked Miss 
Clem with such unwonted energy that Clarie 
stooped to look into her face. The mild little 
woman had generally thrown out her suggestions 
tentatively, quite prepared to withdraw them if 
they were not well received ; but to-night she 
seemed to have changed her nature completely, 
and Clarie was at once aware of a change. 

^‘You don’t mean to tell me. Miss Clem, that 
you preferred him to me ? ” 

“ No,” said Miss Clem with a little backward 
glance ; “ he has May, and Harcourt is with Alice. 
I assure you, Clarie, I am more than satisfied.” 

‘‘ And I don’t see why May is to be annoyed,^’ 
cried Clarie with vexation. 

May will not be annoyed. We expect to finish 
our evening very pleasantly at the rectory. You 


68 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


will come in, too, Clarie?” And Miss Clem came 
as near, to a chuckle of inward delight as Clarie had 
a moment before. 

Indeed I will not ! The. front door is standing 
open, and that means that papa is home. Miss 
Clem,” looking down into her old friend’s eyes, and 
clasping the little white gate as if she meant to bar 
the young physician’s entrance, you are all wrong ; 
you will find out how wrong when it is too late. 
May to fancy Dr. Lovell — or even Alice, for that 
matter! You had better leave off your castle- 
building, Miss Clem ; it is not your forte.” 

She spoke quickly, and with a hot flush on her 
cheeks ; but the old lady’s eyes had a dewy sparkle 
in them, and a fond sort of brooding smile crept 
around her lips. 

Hush, Clarie ; don’t speak so loud. They will 
hear you, though they are all walking so slowly. 
Do you know, my dear, I can’t help it ? And at 
my time of life it seems so silly ; but I do love a 
little romance, and I never shall grow so old that I 
can not feel myself trembling all. over with a sud- 
den sense of joy when I see a pair of lovers — on 
such a night as this,” she repeated softly, glancing 
up at the moon, and unconsciously impersonating 
a faded little Jessica. “Though I never married 
myself, you know, I came very near it. Even my 


DJ^EAMS AND REALITIES. 


69 


wedding-dress was made, dear. Such a pretty, soft 
piece of white satin, eight and sixpence the yard ! 
— and dear, very dear, in those times it was. It 
had a little, low bodice, all piped with satin — real 
milliner’s piping, Clarie. You don’t see such work 
nowadays ; now everything is ruffled and box- 
plaited and tied back, and a woman looks rnore 
like an animated rag-bag walking than anything 
else,” said Miss Clem, warming with her subject. 

You never can tell how neat and lovely a white 
satin was in those days. But, dear me ! I never 
wore it ; and there it is in the garret, in a blue 
chest, folded up in a linen pillow-case, just as if it 
were a shroud.” 

. “ Miss Clem, did he die ? ” asked Clarie, abruptly, 
having heard all about that wedding-gown before. 

He isn’t dead yet,” replied Miss Clem cheer- 
fully. “You see it didn’t kill either of us. I never 
did believe in that sort of thing— it’s unhealthy 
doctrine ; but I never see two foolish young heads 
close together, or a coifple strolling out under the 
trees in the moonlight, that I don’t feel like a girl 
again ; and all the past is with me, and my heart is 
too full for utterance ! It don’t make me unhappy. 
I think I am so glad— so glad !— that as long as the 
world rolls, it will be full of happiness and love.” 

“ You are a dear old soul ! ” said Clarie, u'nloos- 


70 


THE OTHER HOUSE, 


ing her clasp of the gate, and kissing her old 
friend’s forehead. But when I give up my lover, 
I shall make an auto da // of my wedding-dress, 
even though it were piped by the hands of Worth 
himself ; and if it were possible, I would detest 
lovers and love-making more than I do now ! 
Good-night. No, I wouldn’t come in for the 
world ! ” 

And then she dashed hastily across the street 
just as the others neared the gate. “ She is the 
dearest, most idiotic old idiot on earth ! ” she 
laughed to herself, running up the graveled path ; 
then stopped on the porch for an instant, and 
peered through the long, open window, to see if her 
father were there, and make sure that all was right. 

He had apparently just come in : for his hat and 
gloves were lying on the floor by his side, and he 
had thrown himself upon the sofa. How white his 
hair looked against the deep, crimson covering, and 
how nerveless the large, well-formed hand that had 
fallen by his side! She stepped through the win- 
dow, and dropped down noiselessly on her knees, 
passing her firm, soft fingers through his scant 
locks, and dropping a kiss upon his forehead. It 
was very cold. His face was toward her, and she 
noticed it was very pale — of a livid color almost — 
and great beads of moisture stood out upon it. 


DREAMS AND REALITIES. 


71 


Papa, papa dear ! she whispered, trembling 
with a nameless thrill of fear. 

He stirred, smiled vaguely, and looked up, but 
his eyes were cloudy and bewildered. 

Ah ! Is it you, my little Bessie ? ” he mur- 
mured, drawing her face down to his. I have 
waited for you a great while, dear — a great while.” 

“ Oh, papa, it is Clarie, Only Clarie ! Don't you 
know me, papa, darling?” cried the young girl. 

He opened his eyes again, looking at her fright- 
ened face in a dull, troubled sort of way. 

I think I was dreaming,” he said in a tired voice, 
passing his hand over his forehead. Then his eyes 
closed again, but he still held Clarie’s hand. 

She did not know what to say or think. She 
still knelt by his side, her heart-beats sounding in 
her ears like the- tap of a drum. Bessie — that was 
her mother’s name ! She had never heard him 
speak it in all her life before. Why should he be 
thinking of her mother to-night, and why should 
he talk so strangely? To be sure, it was nothing 
new for him to come in tired after a round of visits, 
and throw himself down upon the sofa, and even 
sleep ; and she remembered that of late she had 
seen him take that attitude, as if rest were pleas- 
anter now than heretofore. Yet there was a cer- 
tain confused fear mingling with these explana- 


72 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 

tions. The tears filled her eyes as she thought 
how she loved him. There was nobody in the 
world that she loved like him, and in the course of 
nature he could not live alway. And — what was 
this that was coming to her? Wouldn’t it be pos- 
sible for God to keep this one great sorrow away 
for years — for years to come ? She did not pray. 
She felt that He knew, that He must know, all her 
heart. That was what poor Clarie thought, the 
tears choking and strangling her as she drew men- 
tal pictures of what life would be to those who 
loved him when he and all the mistakes and 
troubles of his life had passed beyond the reach 
of tears and smiles. Oh, if he would only wake 
up ! 

‘‘ Papa,” she said softly, putting her cheek against 
his again, “are you asleep? Don’t lie here and 
doze. Let me help you to your room. Or — are 
you ill, papa? Tell me, tell me what it is ! ” 

There was no reply ; only short, labored breath- 
ing, his face growing paler, his hands very cold. 
An impulse of terror brought the young physician. 
Dr. Lovell, to her mind. He was across the way, 
and May and Alice. She drew herself softly and 
tenderly out of her father’s grasp, and in an instant 
was in the re9tory library. She went past May 
and Alice as if she werv> blind, groping her way 


DREAMS AND REALITIES. 


n 


with her hand stretched out before her, and going 
up to the young doctor softly, but with an excite- 
ment beyond control, touching him on the arm. 

Oh, come with me ! ” she said. “ I am afraid 
papa is very ill. He has gone to sleep, and I can 
not, I can not wake him up ! ” 

4 


/ 


CHAPTER VI. 


DOCTOR GALLATIN LEAVES BRIARLY. 

I T was like a dream — so strange — so sudden. Dr. 

Lovell bending over the sleeping father of the 
family with that air of grave professional interest 
that seemed never to desert him, and Mr. Chantel- 
ling, Miss Clem, and the three girls breathlessly 
awaiting his verdict. 

May and Alice had their arms about each other, 
and both were crying ; but Clarie, walking softly to 
and fro, with closely-clasped hands and compressed 
lips, neither shed tears nor spoke. She had not 
said a word since she had entreated Dr. Lovell to 
come, and come quickly.” She felt as if she were 
in some appalling dream, some nightmare sleep, out 
of which she would presently waken. She saw the 
others talking hurriedly ; the servants come in, then 
go out with awe-stricken faces, and Michael, the 
doctor’s man, a strong young Irishman,, lift the re- 
cumbent figure in his arms, the white head of her 
father resting on Dr. Lovell’s shoulder ; and then 
he was carried up-stairs by the two and laid upon 
his own bed. 

( 74 ) 


DOCTOR GALLA TIN LEA VES BRIARL Y. 75 


May went on softly before with a lamp in her 
hand, the others following more slowly in a half- 
stunned, ignorant sort of way, not knowing what to 
do. She put her lamp down and turned to look 
wistfully and inquiringly into the young doctor’s 
eyes. 

We can do very little,” he said gently, with a 
kind pressure of the hand. “ We can only watch 
and wait. I wish I knew what was the cause. Has 
there been any undue excitement lately? any un- 
usual fatigue or mental pressure?” 

“ Oh, no, none,” said May in a tear-strangled voice. 

He has seemed tired lately — that is all. I thought 
it might be the heat of summer; he never com- 
plained — and yet — I see it now. He acted as if he 
were growing old — he said he was growing old.” 

Then Michael was questioned closely, but he had 
little to tell. In such a moment one generally has 
so much to ask ; so many particulars to enter upon ; 
so many details to explain ; but Michael — though 
he knew more than the two women servants — knew 
comparatively nothing. “‘The doctor had seem- 
ed- just as usual, only a trifle tired. He had driven 
him home -early; he had complained of a slight 
headache, but said he had some writing to do ; 
afterward, on his way from the stable, he had seen 
him bending over the library table. That was all.” 


76 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 

“ Could it be anything about' — business ? ” asked 
Dr. Lovell, hesitating over the question a moment. 

About business? money? The idea entered 
their minds for the first time. Oh, no ; it could not 
be possible ! 

Papa never had any anxieties of that kind that 
we remember — at least he never complained to us,” 
said May, with a little break in her voice; and 
then they all turned and looked at the figure upon 
the bed, again. 

Miss Clem was moving softly about, shading the 
lamp, closing the blind, and doing those numberless 
little things that one does in a sick-room, not be- 
cause they are absolutely needed, but because one 
must have something to do ; and Dr. Gallatin, for 
the first time, had opened his eyes, and was watch- 
ing her apparently with the keenest attention, but 
his gaze was dull and vacant, and when Clarie bent 
down to look into his face, it seemed to go past 
and beyond her — a look that she could not divert 
or follow. Business? money? It all seemed new 
to her — but there must be some clew whereby she 
might unravel the mystery. She went down _softly 
again to the pleasant library, where the light was 
still burning brightly, and looked about the room 
to see if there were any traces of her father’s occu- 
pation. Her heart swelled when she noticed his 


DOCTOR GALLA TIN LEA VES BRIARL Y. 7/ 

chair pushed in front of the table, some drawers 
open, a packet of letters lying loosely about, and a 
sheet of paper on which there were a few lines of 
writing, and a pen dropped over it, as if the hand 
had stopped suddenly. 

Clarie, though she had been in intense sympathy 
with her father, clairvoyant to his spirit, as it were, 
all her life, had never intruded upon his privacy. 
She felt that she had no right to look then ; and 
yet — might not his undue agitation be thus ex-- 
plained ? It seemed almost a wrong as she touched 
the letters, then laid them down reverently when 
she saw they were nothing more than a few girlish 
love-letters, yellow with age, the ink well-nigh 
faded, all of them signed Bessie.” They were 
her mother’s letters — the mother whom she had 
never known. She tied, with a faded ribbon, these 
poor little waifs out of a happy past, and put them 
back into the drawer without reading them. Why 
had her father taken them out of their hiding- 
place? And then she remembered that he had 
called her Bessie, and had said he had been “ wait- 
ing — waiting so long.” She had often wondered 
if her father had missed this love of his youth — 
aye, she had even said, in her girlish self-confi- 
dence, that now that he had her, she could make 
up to him that loss that Miss Clem had once told 


78 


THE OTHER HOUSE, 


her was irreparable. Had she been mistaken all 
along? 

There was only one more paper — a half sheet, 
blotted, as if the pen had fallen suddenly from 
his hand. Her eyes filled with hot tears as she 
read : 

My darlings — my children : I have never talked 
with you about these things. I have always dread- 
ed to broach the subject ; but to-night I have been 
thinking, and — I may not be rich in to-morrows — 
but to-morrow I am going — 

There the hand had stopped. What he wanted 
to say might now never be told. He who had 
thought himself rich in one day even, had not only 
been in poverty, but in blindness! She swept the 
papers back into the drawer, her heart aching with 
a bitter sense of the unknown which compassed 
her on every side. 

Some one came into the room and bent softly 
over her, drawing her to him as if he were trying 
to shield her from some cruel blow. She could 
not see for tears, but she knew the kind, elderly 
brother’s voice, grave, hushed, and full of sorrow 
as it^was. Why did it sound so far away! Was 
she still in a dream? Would she never waken — 
and what was it he was saying ! The Lord gave 
and the Lord hath taken away.” Why did he say 


DOCTOR GALLA TIN LEA VES BRIARL Y. 79 


such words to her? She rose up quickly, gave him 
one frightened, beseeching look, and then flew up 
the stairs, her feet scarcely touching the steps. 
They were all standing about the bed but May; 
she had her father’s white head upon her arm, and 
the tears were flowing quietly down her cheeks as 
she looked at him. Clarie stared breathlessly at 
the group a moment, then she caught the young 
physician by the arm. 

“ Oh, do something ! ” she cried, “ do something ! 
Papa thought you knew so much. Don’t let him 
lie like this. Do something for him. Why do you 
all stand still as if there were nothing to do ? He 
told me himself that you knew far more than he — 
and he, oh ! how many lives he has saved — and yet 
nothing is done for him ! ” 

Doctor Lovell turned around very gently. My 
poor child,” he said compassionately, “he is be- 
yond our care. We can do nothing for him now.” 

She stood quite still, the hot blood rushing to 
her cheeks, the bitter tears surging into her eyes ; 
then she grew suddenly pale, and, trembling in 
every limb, threw off the hand which the young 
doctor had unconsciously laid upon her own, and 
with a low cry knelt down by May’s side and put 
her cheek against that of her father. 

“ Papa,” she cried, “ what is it ? Why can not 


8o 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


something be done for you — you who were always 
doing for everybody? Papa, why can you not 
speak and tell them what to do? It is Clarie, 
Clarie — don’t you know me, papa?” 

“ Don’t, darling, don’t ! ” sobbed May, and Alice 
put her arms about her and tried to draw her away. 

Doctor Lovell turned away and walked up to 
the window to look out — to get rid of the pitiful 
sight, if possible. The night was still and fair, 
and the evening breeze crept into the house soft 
and cool. He watched the broad flood of moon- 
light riot among and silver the leaves of the old 
elms, the stars burning like beacon lights aloft — 
the deep blue arch above that spoke of sleep and 
solemn and eternal quietness, the shaded street 
with lights twinkling here and there from upper 
windows, and heard far off the low bubble of water, 
that seemed to say as it went along — 

“ It keepeth its secret down below, 

And so doth Death.” 

Everything else was strangely still. Not absolute 
silence, but hush ; that solemn hush which is not 
broken by isolated sounds, but absorbs them into 
itself. Dr. Lovell’s thoughts had not been tinct- 
ured by any solemnity or pathos about the old 
physician before him ; such sentiments are easier 


DOCTOR GALLA TIN LEA VES BRIARL Y, 8 1 

to affect than to absolutely feel toward a stranger, 
about whom the only thing that was pitiful was 
his position as father to three dependent, mother- 
less girls. It 'touched him more to look at Clarie, 
with her life all before her, than at him who had 
passed through that probationary term, and now 
stood upon the threshold of another and a higher 
life. That people are not always ready for such 
exchanges did not at once enter his mind. When 
one looks back over seventy years of life, one is 
apt to say it is surely time to think of another 
world. But when one is young, one can afford to 
be prodigal. — prodigal of moralizing, prodigal of 
time, aye, even of life. 

Clarie’^s hand upon his arm recalled him to him- 
self. You must tell me again,” she said. “You 
must tell me again — I do not understand. Can 
you do nothing ? you who are so wise, who ought 
to know so well ? ” 

“ I grieve to say I can do nothing now,” he 
murmured, lowering his gaze so that he might not 
see the pleading in her eyes. 

She threw her hand away with a gesture of 
horror. “ Cruel, cruel ! ” she sobbed in the agony 
of her despair. “You might have saved him if 
you had tried ! ” And she turned and fled from 
the room. 

4 * 


CHAPTER VII. 


SOMETHING TO BEAR. 

T he news flashed through the village like 
wildfire. 

Doctor Gallatin had been one who drew friends 
to him by that sort of magnetic influence that 
some men possess to a remarkable degree, and all 
of the old inhabitants, and indeed many of the 
new, felt a thrill of real emotion when it was 
known that he was dead. Mr. Chantelling, it is 
needless to say, was much at the other house, con- 
soling and planning for them all, and Miss Clem 
could do nothing less than take up her positive 
abode there, treating the three girls as if they were 
confirmed invalids, needing the most patient care 
and minute attention. Of course she could not 
stop talking. The very solemnity and presence 
of death could not deter her from a certain amount 
of planning and maneuvering, and even before the 
funeral she had to check herself many times from 
turning it into a positive marriage ceremony — 

Alice and Harcourt, May and Doctor Lovell, being 
(82) 


SOMETHING TO BEAR. 


83 


duly decked for the double bridal. It confused 
her very much to come back every time to only a 
funeral. Bitterly as she grieved, it did seem a 
little hard that the law of compensation couldn’t 
come in here, or even a gleam of the coming of 
that law ; but, strange to say, Alice had scarcely a 
word to bestow on the rector, and the rector was 
equally absorbed in his attentions to the bereaved 
family as a whole — not in parts. In fact, if he 
talked to one more than another, it was cerfainly 
Clarice ; and as for Doctor Lovell, he had never 
entered the house after that one sad night of 
watching and of death. Things were going wrong 
even in this early stage of Miss Clem’s castle- 
building, and she felt that perhaps in time her con- 
structive ability might be questioned — a stronger 
hand — a more vigorous touch needed — but whose 
should it be, pray ? And what was all this talk of 
Harcourt’s about the girls being unprovided for, 
so many bad debts, and such a careless way of 
keeping accounts as the doctor, had } Poor dears ! 
that was only another reason why they should 
marry at once ! And as she turned these thoughts 
over in her mind she concluded it was a wise and 
safe provision of the father to steal away with his 
life from them all, and thereby cause her little 
plan to be executed in a thoroughly romantic and 


84 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


proper way. But why didn’t Harcourt speak? 
And why didn’t he take Alice’s hand on that first 
lonely evening, when they were all together in the 
library after the funeral, and why didn’t he say 
before them all, This is my wife ? ” That was 
the way they always did it in books, and that 
would have been Miss Clem’s way ; but instead — 
and here Miss Clem waxed wroth — he had taken 
Clarie in his arms, and had cried over her as if she 
had been a child. Harcourt was certainly behav- 
ing in a most extraordinary manner. And why 
should it be Clarie, always Clarie ? There were 
two other girls to worry about. And Miss Clem 
knit her brows, and took another little dip into 
architecture. 

It was all very true, there were two other girls 
to worry over, and the all-important question of 
how they were to live was a grave problem to 
solve. The entire fortune which their father left 
behind him was the house ; a well-appointed 
stable-; a somewhat incoherent list of people who 
had been owing him for years ; several bills that 
were ‘known to be good ; an old policy of life 
insurance that had somehow l^een forgotten, the 
premium of which had not been paid for years, 
and the furniture, which had been gradually grow- 
ing older and more decrepit every year. The girls 


SOMETHING TO BEAR 


85 


had laughingly re-covered the drawing-room suite 
only the week before. It had seemed so easy to 
riot ill extravagance, if it were only in imagination, 
when the father was alive ; but now that he was 
gone, they stared into each other’s faces and asked. 
Upon what are we to live ? ” 

They were asking the Reverend Harcourt and 
Miss Clem this very question when Mrs. Abury 
came in about a week after the funeral. Mrs. Abury 
called herself one of the old physician’s sincerest 
mourners. Living as she did, in a highly rarefied 
social air, it was not seemly, or indeed even possi- 
ble, that she should show any undignified signs of 
grief ; but — alone and in the privacy that the best 
blue-chamber afforded her — she had cried from 
absolute bitterness of heart because she had been 
so silly as to call in a new physician, and thereby 
possibly have wounded the feelings of the dear old 
friend who had taken care of her ever since she 
was a child. She ventured to say something like 
this to May when she paid this visit of condolence, 
and found them all sitting in the sunny parlor, 
which somehow would look sad in spite of the 
sunshine flooding it — as if the real sunshine had 
gone oyt of it, and this flicker and glare were only 
a mockery, a sort of scenic deception — at least 
Mrs. Abury, who was much given to hyperbole 


86 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


and figures of speech, put it to herself in this way, 
concluding it was rather a neat little simile — 
though perhaps for the wife of a church-warden 
she might have done better than allude, even in 
thought, to scenic effects. 

The girls, pale as death in the extreme black- 
ness of their mourning, had met her with some- 
thing of composure; but when she beganTo pour 
forth her self-reproaches with her tears. May and 
Alice broke down utterly. It was only Clarie who 
held her head erect and looked at her with eyes in 
which disdain and pride struggled for supremacy. 

“ Sorry ! ” she echoed, raising her head, “ and 
what good does it do papa now, or any of us for 
that matter, that you are sorry ? People cast off 
their old friends as they do their clothing, and 
never think anything about it. I know how papa 
felt as to Dr. Lovell superseding him. Oh, you 
need not shake your head — superseding is the 
word. But he never dared trust himself to speak 
of those old friends who were so charmed with a 
new face that they forgot what he had been to 
them and their families all his life.” 

“ Oh, Clarie, Clarie ! ” cried Mrs. Abury with a 
shocked, grieved face ; “ I can not have you say 
such bitter things. I loved your father dearly. We 
never thought of grieving him.” 


SOMETHING TO BEAR. 


87 


“No/* said Clarie with another passionate burst, 
“ no one ever thinks. But do you call it a good 
excuse ? Do you suppose it will be of any avail to 
us, when we stand before the awful tribunal at the 
last day, to say that we never thought ? Oh, Mrs. 
Abury, we do think ; we are thinking all the time ! 
I wonder sometimes if God will be compassionate 
when we put Him off with such silly excuses ; or 
perhaps it is God’s fault — His fault, that we are so 
blind and silly as to say it at all.” And her voice 
broke suddenly into sobs. 

“You ought not to let her excite herself in this 
way,” said Mrs. Abury, wiping her own eyes again, 
and making sure that she had just reddened them 
sufficiently for the mournful occasion ; “ she is 
nervous and over-sensitive — your poor papa was. 
We loved him like a father; that you know, my 
dear.” 

“Yes,” said May quietly, “we have been sure of 
your sympathy. Every one is very kind.*’ 

But when her guest had departed. May went up 
to Clarie softly, and putting both arms around her 
neck, looked down into her eyes. She had been so 
much surprised at the young girl’s outburst that 
she did not know what to say ; so she only looked 
into her eyes, and kissed her with an air of grave, 
tender inquiry. 


88 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


Don’t look at me so, May,” she sobbed, her 
blue eyes flowing over with sudden tears. “ I 
treated her with positive forbearance ; I did in- 
deed, May. It was all I could do not to burst out 
upon her and ask how she had the audacity to 
come and pretend to grieve with us. We did not 
ask her sympathy and her tears. She never shed 
any. I watched her all the time.” 

She had a most beautiful handkerchief,” mur- 
mured Miss Clem irrelevantly ; “ I saw it plainly 
when she pressed it to her eyes. There was a love- 
ly ‘A’ in the corner; and I do think — indeed I 
know — she cried.” 

The rector rose rather suddenly and began pac- 
ing the room with his hands behind him and some- 
thing like a flush on his pale cheeks as Clarie went 
on, never heeding Miss Clem’s soft little half- 
soliloquy. 

I wonder what she will say when she knows 
that we have nothing — absolutely nothing in the 
world ? I don’t believe she will care as much for us 
then as she pretends to do now. Oh, May, what 
are we going to do about it all ? It seems so hard 
to look forward to. I wonder papa never thought ; 
he who had stood by so many death-beds, and 
knew for a surety just what must come! Oh, it 
seems so h^rd ! ” clasping her hands. 


SOMETHING TO BEAR. 


89 


And then there was a painful pause, during 
which Miss Clem secretly wiped her eyes behind 
her pocket-handkerchief, and Clarie looked fixedly 
straight ahead, as if she were trying to make a 
plain path for them all out of the sunshine stream- 
ing in upon the floor and dancing through the half- 
closed Venetian blinds. All at once she got up 
and shut out the sunlight, just as if she were try- 
ing to shut it out from her life. 

‘‘ I can see just what it will be,” she said in a 
stifled voice, and with an impatient upward move- 
ment of her white hands. “ May will drudge her 
life out in petty household economies, and Alice 
and I will turn school-ma’ams and teach music and 
painting or wax flowers, perhaps take in fine sew- 
ing and spoil our eyes, and tempers, and forefingers, 
too ; and probably we will let out some of the up- 
per rooms to single gentlemen — Dr. Lovell, for in- 
stance. He can have papa’s office, and buy his 
books and table and easy-chair. Oh, papa, papa ! ” 
she sobbed, dropping her head on the table at this 
passionate outburst ; I want to die — that is what 
I want to do ! I want to get away from it all ! ” 

“ But one can’t die when one wants to,” said Miss 
Clem, in her soft, pathetic voice of remonstrance. 

Besides, it is very wicked, Harcourt would tell 
you if he were not so absorbed just now in his 


90 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


'thoughts, that I’m sure I never pretend to under- 
stand.” 

The Rev. Harcourt stopped his walk rather ab- 
ruptly at this and bent over Clarie, saying some- 
thing to her in a low voice which the others did 
not hear. There was always a suggestion of femi- 
nine affectionateness in his manner toward the 
girls, particularly Clarie ; and Miss Clem looked up 
amazed to hear her say impetuously, I can not 
think it — I will not believe you.” 

‘‘You ought not to contradict Harcourt,” she 
said, dropping her hands in amazement at the 
young girl’s' variable temper. 

“And why not, pray?” she asked with a half 
smile. “ Because he was born in one year and I 
somewhat later, am I to believe everything he says 
is law and gospel? No, thank you.” But she took 
his hand in hers and put her face down upon it, 
crying under her breath, “ Oh, papa ! why couldn’t 
we both have gone together ? ” 

Ah ! well for the dead that they are held so safe 
in God’s keeping, so lost in the eternity of His 
love, that their eyes are turned far from this world 
and all the pain and bitterness they have left be- 
hind. What would not her father have suffered 
could he have seen her? Could he have been hap- 
py even in that far-away Paradise, if they, his 


SOMETHING TO BEAR. 


91 


loved ones, were unhappy? Would even the rest 
and peace of heaven be sweet to him if it were 
broken by the sound of girlish sobs? 

“ Don’t,” said May, softly, with that feeling in 
her heart of the dear human presence which she 
could not rid herself of, and which it seemed was 
so near it might be grieved ; “ it almost seems as if 
he could see into our hearts now.” 

Perhaps he can,” said Alice, in an awe-stricken 
whisper, lifting her eyes to the cloudless sky, which 
for the first time in her life seemed a barrier in- 
stead of a beauty to her, shadowing and circum- 
scribing her vision. And we could have said so 
much to him only a week ago ! ” realizing for the 
first time that awful and absolute mystery of sever- 
ance. A week ago ! Oh, how much had hap- 
pened since then ! 

It seems so curious,” Miss Clem was rambling 
on, “ one wants to die and another wants to live. 
I have sometimes thought it was such a strange 
'thing that He whose ear is open to every cry, must 
listen and weigh it all and decide v^hat was best, 
without any thought of individual wishes or hopes ; 
and, oh ! my dears, no one but Omnipotence could 
do it. Think of the confusion of petitions ! I am 
sure it makes me crazy to think over the people I 
know who want things, and who don’t want them. 


92 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


Dear me, I hope I am saying nothing irreverent. 
I have the strangest thoughts sometimes. I only 
know it is a mercy that we are not left utterly to 
ourselves.^’ 

Miss Clem’s rambling way of moralizing usually 
brought smiles to the girls’ faces ; but it was quite 
impossible for any of them to smile now, nor could 
they make any reply. They only saw the kind, 
foolish old heart back of all her vagaries, and even 
her sympathy was sweet to them. 

“ Mr. Chantelling,” said May, “ I have been think- 
ing for several days past that we ought to make up 
our minds definitely about doing something to 
help ourselves. Clarie makes a burlesque of it, but 
in her heart I know Clarie would love to help me. 
We might stay in this house, couldn’t we? for it 
would be the hardest thing in the world to leave it 
■ — but we could open a school. I could teach little 
children, I am sure, and we have always needed a 
select school in the village. I used to hear papa 
say so,” stilling her voice into something like calm- 
ness. “ I think that people would not refuse me, 
for our father’s sake, if not for my own.” 

‘‘ Of course they would not refuse you,” said Miss 
Clem ; but oh. May, think of it — the drudgery, 
and the doubtful position it puts you all in. It 
breaks my heart to have it so ! ” 


SOMETHir^G TO BEAR. 


93 


“ It doesn’t break mine,” cried Clarie, stoutly- 
coming to May’s rescue. ‘‘You thought truly, 
dear, when you said I was making a burlesque of 
it all ; for, indeed, I consider it is the only thing for 
us to do. * And, Mr. Chantelling, you think as we 
do, don’t you ? You think a lady can do anything 
and be a lady still.” 

“ I do, indeed, Clarie,” replied the rector ; “ but 
I dread the position for you.” 

“ And why should you dread it for me ? ” inter- 
rogated Clarie, her head erect, her eyes quite dry 
now, and a kind of proud smile on her lips, as if 
she loved to defy the world, and was glad to hurl 
her youthful disdain at it. “ We have our health 
and our hands. Alice, you haven’t said a word. 
Why do you leave it all to May and to me?” 

“ Because I feel you and May will settle it right, 
and I can do as you can. I am not brave or 
strong ; I can not lead, but I can follow.” 

Miss Clem’s eyes, with all her heart in them, 
caught the rector’s, and she made an encouraging, 
noiseless little movement of the lips. If he would 
only take her hand now ! It would have been bet- 
ter if he had done it earlier ; but at least he could 
do it now ! 

And Mr. Chantelling looked down at the faded, 
yet expressive countenance of his sister, and seeing 


94 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


something there so entirely and absolutely strange 
and unusual, faced about suddenly, wiped his 
glasses, and said, “ Did you think of any other plan, 
Clem? If you did, perhaps it may answer our 
question ? ’’ 

^‘Answer it?” echoed Miss Clem resentfully, ‘Mt 
must be asked first, Harcourt, and I shall never 
find any one who does it to suit me ! There never 
was anything so blind and idiotic as a man — never ! 
never ! ” 

“ Why, I thought we were talking of the school ! 
I beg your pardon, Clem. What man were you 
speaking of, dear ? ” 

“ The blindest of the blind ! the most willful, in- 
sufferable idiot ! — oh, Harcourt, let us go home ; 
when I think of it all I lose my temper, and I canT 
be responsible for myself. I am sure I shall be say- 
ing the most terrible things.” 

“ Don’t go,” appealed May. “ Don’t go, at least 
until you tell me you will help me form the school 
and give it your support. I can do nothing without 
you — nothing.” 

She stood before him as if she would bar his way 
until he was forced to answer, and, as he looked 
down at her slight little figure, her deep mourning 
robes, and her nervous, interlaced fingers, he felt a 
sudden tightening as if hands had been rudely 
placed around his throat. 


SOMETHING TO BEAR, 


95 


May/’ he said brokenly, “ whatever you want 
that I can get, you shall have. You may com- 
mand me as you please. You must know that 
whatever you desire to do would seem right in my 
eyes.” 

And then he bent down and kissed her on the 
forehead before them all, caught up his hat and 
rushed out of the room and out of the house, leav- 
ing Miss Clem sitting like a statue looking straight 
before her. 

Certainly the Reverend Harcourt'was behaving 
in a most extraordinary manner ! 


/ 


CHAPTER VIII. 

POETRY AND PROSE. 

IFE went on quietly enough at the other 



house ; and after the first surprise and shock, 
life went on quietly enough with Dr. Gallatin’s 
patients. At first it had seemed as if he could 
scarcely be spared ; but popular opinion decided 
that Dr. Lovell might in time fill his place. So 
little does it take to efface old memories ! So little 
do we heed it when a soul slips from out our midst, 
leaving behind it the solemn seal of eternal silence ! 

I suppose it must always be so under a great af- 
fliction. People are shocked — perhaps even grieve 
bitterly — but in a week it is all over. After the 
funeral it is necessary to take up the burden of life 
again, just where it was laid down when death had 
sent this shock; and after the emotions are dis- 
posed of — the proper sentiment wasted — then there 
is always somebody who has to come to the front 
and pick up the cares, and duties, and responsibil- 
ities that no one thinks of or claims. That was 
May’s part. That had always been her part. And 


(96) 


POETRY AND PROSE, 


97 


whatever it might be to others, it was a trying, 
solemn time to May Gallatin. The days seemed 
so long and dreary, and yet they went so swiftly 
on ; it would soon be September, and time for the 
school to begin, upon which she had so resolutely 
set her mind. She rarely, if ever, spoke to the two 
girls about it after that first long talk and decision. 
Her old household economies absorbed just as much 
of her time as ever. May had always molded her 
actions with a regard for others, so it was no new 
thing to plan for the future, to try and make much 
of the little that was left to her, and to thank God 
that she could do it, and that it was He who gave 
her the. will and the strength to do. To every 
separate soul there seems to be a separate Scripture, 
and to the gentle, brave, little woman, perhaps the 
sweetest words that were ever written was that one 
verse about casting all our care upon God.” She 
always paused and finished it softly to herself, 
dwelling tenderly upon the words, “ for He careth 
for you.” And that was all May asked for or 
wanted. She never dreamed of anything else 
coming into her life. 

As for Alice, she never had any absorbing duties. 
Her life ran along so close by May’s that it never 
seemed there was anything left to do. She wanted 
to help ; but it was quite one matter to theorize, 
S 


98 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


and another to practice. She had heard self- 
dependent women say there was a glory and tri- 
umph in meeting the world and battling it ; but 
when she looked at her small, delicate hands, she 
felt like rushing ingloriously from the field. Work? 
She who had only made an idle dream out of life, 
now found that it was a word full of signification. 
She could not pretend to define it, and, oh ! what 
a little weapon — a girl’s untried hands — to go out 
with and do battle against the world ! 

Then, with a strange trembling coming over her, 
she would set herself all sorts of tasks. Not that 
it was absolutely necessary to begin work ; the 
school would not open until September,, but when 
it did open she wanted to take her share of the 
burden. May and Clarie should not bear it all. 
For May, who had been, and now must always be 
in some sort, the drudge of the family, had not all 
the work to do in this matter. Clarie was to give 
lessons in painting and German, as well as in in- 
strumental and vocal music. The young girl had 
bravely gone out and sought her own scholars, but 
Mr. Chantelling had spoken for May. It was he 
who had made every arrangement and perfected 
every plan. ‘‘You shall, have all that you want. 
May,” he had said to her that night of their first 
talk on the subject ; but he had “fever kissed her 


POETRY AND PROSE. 


99 


again, nor had he ever spoken of his strange con- 
duct, that Miss Clem had set down in her own 
mind as an extraordinary aberration on the part of 
the Rev. Harcourt, and May had remembered with 
a glow in her heart. 

So Alice gave herself long tasks just to see how 
it would seem to turn life into bare, unlovely 
monotony. She rose early and found something 
to take up the moment that breakfast was finished. 
•She spent long hours in the silence of her own room, 
doing something there that it thrilled her whole 
soul with pleasure to do, and yet doing it secretly, 
fearful of reproof or defeat. It was a lovely world, 
after all, and it seemed such a good place for so 
many people, why not for her ? And once, in one 
of these overflowing bursts of joy at the prodigality 
and loveliness of nature around her, she ventured 
to let her thoughts drift away from the prose of 
life into the poetry of it, writing it out with a 
sweet, subtile happiness, that she could thus utter 
it. It came to her like a revelation — all those 
aspirations and longings which heretofore had lain 
dormant — unexpressed. She longed to put some 
of her thoughts into words : to take the beautiful 
things that go to make up a beautiful life and 
idealize them. “ It might come to something,” she 
mused, with a dreamy eye. Our thoughts must 


100 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


work out something for ourselves, if not for others. 
Nothing is wasted in this life, so how can our 
dreams and our fancies go for naught? God would 
not give them to us if they were to be simply 
wasted.” So she took all the blessedness and 
beauty as it drifted to her heart, and shut it there- 
in, as one may put away a flower to mark a happy 
time, in token of a joy that God had helped her to 
perfect. She could not tell her glad secret to any- 
body. It would be time enough to tell them all 
when success should attend her work. Of defeat 
she did not dream, and when she sent off a busi- 
ness-looking envelope directed to the editor of one 
of the largest magazines in the country, she felt a 
certain pride that the credit of the family was in 
her hands. Alice had chosen the weapon with 
which she was to overcome the world — and it was 
nothing but a pen ! 

As for Clarie, it would have been hard to tell what 
she thought. Her nature was light-hearted and 
elastic, but she was also brave, and she tried to feel 
a sort of disdain of trouble — the disdain of youth — 
together with a certain pride in overcoming it. She 
could not throw a glamour over each stern duty as 
Alice did, nor was she able to make out of life a 
fairy tale or a poem. On the contrary, in what a 
new light the world appeared to her ! Her own 


POETRY AND PROSE. 


lOI 


life — what was it? A bubble, a vapor, a dream. 
And yet, trite as were the words to her, she had 
never realized their meaning until she had knelt by 
the dead body of the loved one who had wakened 
from that dream. It seemed strange and unreal to 
cany such a weight about in her young heart, and 
to know that she was almost powerless to contend 
against it. It would be foolish to say that she felt 
no mortification involved in their change of life, 
but her grief at the loss of her father rose and cast 
out all lesser feeling. In this state- of mind work 
was absolute consolation to her. Of course she 
thought, with that sweeping generalization that 
the young are prone to employ, that happiness of 
all kinds had deserted her forever ; and she was 
sometimes grateful for the anticipated work, glad 
of anything that would take her away from herself. 
Through the day she went about with a cheerful 
air, putting aside anxieties with a proud sort of de- 
fiance ; but when the day was over, and the three 
girls gathered together in their usual places about the 
library table,* the room seemed vaguely like a kind 
of tomb to Clarie — a tomb in which all her hopes 
and joys were buried. Sometimes she wondered,^ 
with a half-superstitious awe, if her father were 
near, looking at her with tender spiritual sight, 
reading her unspoken thought, yet unable to make 


102 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


himself known. If he were not near, why did she 
have this subtile sense of protection ; a feeling that 
she could not lose, even though the great boundary 
lines of an unknown world separated them ? 

And then her eyes would grow wistful and wet 
with sudden tears, and she would leave the girls, 
and sit down by the open window, and lean her 
head upon her hand, looking out at the stars, a great 
and glittering tangle, and wonder if they knew of 
the trouble and sorrow that they were looking 
down upon with such solemn, abiding eyes — they 
were so old, so wise, it might be. Could it be pos- 
sible that they knew ? 

So it came to pass that Alice and Clarie ex- 
changed natures, as it were, when the day began 
to draw to a close. Clarie, active, restless, brave 
through the day, grew silent and thoughtful as the 
purpling shadows began to creep like silent ghosts 
into the quiet old house ; and Alice, the one who 
had never allowed anything to disturb her seeming 
serenity, grew preoccupied, nervous, and, finally" 
donning her hat and shawl, would go out. She 
never stayed very long; and once when May 
asked her where she had been, she blushed pain- 
fully and said: “Oh, for a little walk-just to the 
post-office,” that was all. One night, when she and 
Clarie were alone in the library, just as another 


POE TR y AND PROSE. 


103 


day was waning, Clarie startled her by abruptly 
asking : 

Alice, do you expect a lovedetter, that you are 
so anxious about the post? ” 

Alice flushed crimson. “ I wish I could tell you,” 
she said, “ what I have been doing. I have kept it 
to myself all along ; but, now that the end is so 
very near, I feel that I want somebody to bear it 
with me.” 

Put it here,” cried Clarie, with mock solemnity, 
bowing her shoulders as if to receive a burden. “ I 
am equal to bear any weight in life.” 

“ Oh, but I can not tell you here.” 

‘‘Here? In the library ? What is there in this 
room to prevent you from telling a secret? It isn’t 
a whispering gallery, is it ? ” 

“ Oh, darling,” said Alice, nervously, “ Miss Clem 
might come in, or Mr. Chantelling, or May might 
ask what we were talking about ; and I never kept 
anything from May before in my life. I don’t want 
to now, but I have planned it for a surprise.” 

“Alice!” exclaimed Clarie, “if you don’t confess 
at once I shall resort to thumb-screws, though I 
warn you now, if it is any conspiracy against Church 
or State, I shall betray you.” 

“ I am sorry I began,” said Alice, with a little 
air of offense ; “ but I thought it would be so com- 


104 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


forting to talk with somebody about it. I am sorry 
I didn’t keep it to myself a little longer,” and she 
turned away to conceal the sudden mist that cloud- 
ed her eyes. 

I think you are the oddest girl ! ” laughed 
Clarie. “I never feel hurt if any one laughs at 
me.” 

But it isn’t me exactly,” persisted Alice. I 
suppose I must have something of the feeling that 
a child gives to her . first doll, or a woman to her 
first baby, for that matter, for — darling — I have 
been writing a poem ! ” And Alice’s cheeks burned 
at the confession. “And I have sent it to a maga- 
zine — oh, I will not tell you which — and I have 
expected an answer every day and every day, and 
it don’t come. Do you think, dear, it can be 
lost?” 

But Clarie only laughed and patted Alice’s 
flushed cheek. “ A genius in the family ! Who 
would have thought it should be you, not me ! 
What do you suppose Miss Clem would say? Oh ! 
Alice, I am so glad you have the heart to do it ! ” 

“ But do you think they will accept it, dear? ” 
“How can I tell?” replied Clarie. “Of course 
they will take it if the editor knows enough to de- 
tect a good thing; but half of them don’t know; 
that is, if we are to believe the great army of 


POETRY AND PROSE 


105 


rejected authors. But I wish you had told me 
sooner, then I could have read it before it went on 
its mission.” 

“ But I have saved a copy. See, here it is in my 
pocket. I have been dying to show it to you all 
day.” 

Alice’s fingers trembled nervously as she drew 
the folded paper from her pocket, and then the 
two heads, leaning fondly together, bent over it in 
the fading light that came in through the window. 

Clarie read slowly for a moment, then leaned 
back, with her eyes fixed dreamily upon the sky. 
“ Read it to me, Allie, dear,” she said ; “ it will 
sound so much better that way.” 

And Alice read, a little huskily, and with a cer- 
tain tremble in her voice : 

Was there ever a summer as sweet as this ? 

Was there ever ’mong Junes as fair a June? 

Birds that are singing in full-throated bliss, 

Ask the same question, and ask it in tune. 

I can not sing such a song if I would, 

/ only know that my whole heart is stirred ; 

Life seems so loving, beneficent, good. 

Why can’t I trill out my joy like a bird ? 

Bees that are droning, how sleepy you sing ; 

What are you telling each other, I pray ? 

Whence does your secret of happiness spring? 

No matter — I’m happy as you are to-day ! 

5 * 


I06 - ^ THE OTHER HOUSE. 

Lily bells swinging their blossoms of snow, 

Violets shedding their tender perfume, 

Dipped are the roses in sunset’s rich glow. 

Flushed with the dawn is the sweetbriar’s bloom. 

Foolish young butterflies, bright -tinted things. 

Keep on the wing through the slow summer hours : 

Would I were like them, and would I had wings, 

To drift in my joy to the heart of the flowers. 

Linger, ye moments — I pray you pass slow ; 

Earth is so beautiful, heaven so near ; 

Everything possible even below, 

' Sweetest of months is the June of this year. 

There was a little pause after she had ended, 
and then Clarie said : It is very nice ; that is — it 
is very nice if you feel it all ; but — but — isn’t there 
an awful lie somewhere ? ” 

A lie ? ” faltered Alice. 

“Yes, dear; you know I never can gloss things 
over and say them smoothly like other people. I 
always thought the inspired creatures that wrote 
generally gave their heart to the public — made a 
sort of free-will offering, as it were, of their own 
individual emotions, and — I can’t think this has 
been such a lovely summer to you.” 

“ But J une was,” answered Alice, dreamily. “ As 
I look back now, in our sorrow, and think of it, it 
was a Paradise, a heaven to me ! ” 

Clarie’s eyes filled. 


POETR Y AND PROSE. 


107 


“ Don’t mind what I say, Allie. It is all right, I 
know. The editor will be glad enough to take it. 
Why, some of the things one sees in magazines are 
perfect twaddle ! ” 

“ Yes, but nobody knows me,” argued Alice, wist- 
fully. I have to let it stand on its merit alone.” 

^‘That’s the beauty of it. You are a Great Un- 
known — the coming woman. People aro always 
looking for the great American novel ; one of these 
days they may be able to find the great American 
poem ! Now, I’ll tell your fortune. Let me see.” 
She took Alice’s little hand in hers and pretended, 
with a grave face, to trace out lines in the smooth 
palm. “Nothing but success! A straight road 
to fame! Why, here are letters and checks in- 
numerable. The door to be besieged by editors 
begging for poems! Fame and fortune at your 
command! Lucky Alice! You know what the 
family oracle says: ‘Alice is the wise one of the 
family.’ I shall begin to think Miss Clem is un- 
commonly astute ! ” 

“ Don’t ! ” begged Alice. “ I never understood 
before what it was to pray for deliverance from 
one’s friends — ” 

Miss Gallatin,” said Clarie, severely, “ this is a 
clear case of conscience with me. I regret to ob- 
serve your ingratitude.” 


I08 THE OTHER HOUSE. 

‘‘-Dear me!” said Miss Clem, bustling in with 
May, “how pleasant it sounds to hear you girls 
chattering together again. As I came up the walk 
I said to myself that it was the only happy thing 
I had heard in weeks. Is there anything new ? I 
hope it isn’t a secret.” 

“ Miss Clem,” said Clarie, solemnly, “ I was just 
telling Alice that you were the wisest woman that 
I ever knew.” 

“ Why, Clarie ! Clarie Gallatin ! The idea of a 
compliment coming from you, when you have been 
inwardly laughing at me ever since you were 
born 1 ” 

And then she settled the soft old lace about her 
wrists,, twisted her one solitary ring on her finger, 
and blushed with a pleased surprise like any young 
girl. 

To think that Clarie should pay her a compli- 
ment. After all, perhaps, she had done her a little 
injustice occasionally. Harcourt was right ; Clarie 
might be developing into a very fine girl ! 


CHAPTER IX. 


FACING THE FOE. 

M ISS CLEM had spoken the truth. Doctor 
Lovell did take. He was already a favorite 
in the village, and most of the ladies, young and 
old, married and single, had given him their hands 
unprofessionally, if not their pulses professionally, 
and concluded that it was a positive dispensation 
of Providence that he had been sent to fill Doctor 
Gallatin’s place. For, fill the void he certainly 
had ; even Clarie was obliged to acknowledge this 
bitter truth, and it made her feel more hard and 
unforgiving to the young physician than ever. It 
was not to be supposed that he understood Clarice’s 
state of mind on this subject, although he must 
have felt in some degree her coldness ; for, never 
since the night of her father’s death had he entered 
the house. Indeed, he scarcely trusted himself to 
look toward it in his daily walks to and fro ; the tall 
trees standing solemnly about it, seeming to him 
like so many sentinels guarding the sacredness of a 
lonely home. 

He knew that he liked Clarie Gallatin very much ; 

(109) 


no 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


that he admired her, and that in time he should 
love her, if she would let him ; but that he felt sure 
was not to be. He must go on with his work like 
other men, and forget it ; and then the path that 
he had laid out for himself could never be a lonely 
or unpleasant one. A vigorous, healthy mind like 
his, not overbalanced by love of self or gain, finds 
strength in making acquaintance with life, and 
learns to watch its personal development with in- 
terest. Dr. Lovell had plenty to do in thus caring 
for himself, but his isolation had never made him 
selfish. He had a heart to offer when the mo- 
mentous occasion came ; the only thing that was 
needed was the occasion. And there was not only 
heart, but an odd sort of power, in the very sim- 
plicity of Lovell’s character, which drew to him 
many friends, and among them none more staunch 
or true than the Reverend Harcourt Chantelling. 
Never were two men more unlike mentally and 
physically, so the friendship was only to be ex- 
plained by that subtle law of antagonisms which 
seems to govern the world. Hardly a day passed 
that they did not see each other. If it were only 
for a moment, in passing. Dr. Lovell would drop in, 
or they would meet on the street, and both dis- 
cover that they wanted to walk in the same direc- 
tion ; or there would be the same sick person to 


FACING THE FOE. 


Ill 


visit, or talk about — it really didn’t matter what 
the thing was. There was always so much to think 
over, or talk over ; but what surprised Dr. Lovell 
more than anything was the very little that the 
Reverend Harcourt had to say about the Gallatin 
girls. He knew that his friend saw more of Clarie 
than of any one, for it was not only their old friend- 
ship that drew them together, but there was the 
weekly practice of the chants and hymns, as well 
as the Sunday afternoon school at the old mill. 

This school was one of the rector’s plans that he 
had been longest in maturing and perfecting, and it 
had become one of his most beloved occupations. 
A Sunday-school for the mill hands — the young 
women and girls who all through the week worked 
in the tall, noisy mill, with its great rows of windows 
staring, like so many lidless eyes, year in and year 
out, upon the alternate changes of dust and heat, 
cold and snow, the only unsightly object in the 
pretty rural landscape. He had managed to estab- 
lish his school by slow degrees, at first thinking it 
such an unlikely thing that he should succeed that 
he had undertaken it alone and unaided ; but grad- 
ually he had imparted the intelligence to the Galla- 
tin household, and Clarie had been the first one to 
give him assistance. It was just the thing that she 
liked to do. And she had never seemed so lovely or 


II2 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


womanly to the rector as when she stood among 
the gaudily-attired, bold-faced mill-girls, in her sim- 
ple muslin dress, with her Bible and lessons in her 
ungloved, ringless hands, teaching them in a quiet, 
unaffected way, totally unlike the Clarie Gallatin 
whom he met every day, and who had never seem- 
ed so wholly herself as when she was caricaturing 
and mocking him relentlessly. She would be a 
beautiful character one day — and then the sensitive 
little man felt his womanish heart glow within him 
— one day she would be sweet and gentle and true 
as another woman, the one who was enshrined 
in his heart as a type of all that was perfect and 
true. 

Glarie, too, seemed to know her friend better, 
and to realize more fully the absolute purity and 
beauty of his calling as they worked together. 
Every Sunday afternoon found her at her post, and 
she made very steady progress with the girls. By 
degrees the school grew. It was quite enough that 
a beautiful young lady — always dressed in the latest 
fashion, yet with a simplicity that surprised their 
untutored tastes — should be willing to come among 
them and give smiles with her kind, encouraging 
words. They had laughed and felt a little sheep- 
ish about going to Sunday-school at first, but they 
came to regard it as a great pleasure to be thus 


FACING THE FOE. 


II3 

taught. New pupils kept dropping in, until the 
mill-school, as it was called, might be considered a 
great success. 

Doctor Lovell had heard of Clarice in this posi- 
tion of teacher and friend from almost every one 
but the Reverend Harcourt himself. It was really 
strange that he had never mentioned her name. 
Perhaps — and here the doctor caught himself fol- 
lowing out the same train of thought that poor 
Miss Clem had injudiciously instituted — perhaps the 
Reverend Harcourt loved her ; it really would not 
be so very unreasonable. But even the bare suppo- 
sition cost the young man a pang, for which he 
rated himself soundly the next instant. What 
would Clarie Gallatin ever be to him, pray? though 
his whole soul had yearned for her ever since that 
night when she had thrown his hand from off her 
arm and called him “ Cruel, cruel!” From every 
place where he went for many a long day, by every 
bedside that he tarried, he saw looking up at him 
two deep, violet eyes, fringed with long lashes heavy 
with tears that were too bitter to fall. How he 
had longed to see her once more to beg her to take 
back her cruel words, to tell her how vain is the skill 
of man in such a case ! How he would put his 
whole heart into the telling ! But what was he 
that she should care for him, even if she forgave 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


1 14 

him ? It would not be easy to say to Clarie Gal- 
latin all that he had been wanting to say for so 
many weeks ; yet he was resolutely bent upon say- 
ing it, and to put an end to further doubt, he had 
determined to speak to her the first opportunity 
that offered. If it were possible, he wanted her to 
be his friend. He did not dare think of those eyes 
ever lighting up with joy at seeing him, of that 
young face bending down to his, or those proud 
lips smiling with joy when he was present ; but if 
it could be so — and the very thought sent the blood 
tingling through his veins with a thrill altogether 
new to him ; he would ask nothing more of fate — 
nothing more of life. Still he lingered over it, de- 
laying a meeting from day to day, avoiding passing 
by the old house instinctively, and going to the 
rectory almost invariably when he knew none of the 
ladies from the other house were there. 

But one night he saw her and she was coming to 
meet him, though she was not aware of it. The 
soft darkness of a warm September evening was 
beginning to close over earth and sky as she left 
the close, crowded room, and drank in with a feeling 
of infinite relief the balmy, delicious air. The trees 
were changing color ; a few red and yellow leaves, 
looking newly dipped in sunshine, fluttered down 
as she went along ; but she was so much absorbed 


FACING THE FOE. 


II5 

in her thoughts that she did not heed them. She 
was rather glad to have her thoughts to herself and 
walk home alone, the rector being obliged to re- 
main with a sick child — the same child that Dr. Lov- 
ell was going to visit. He had already reached the 
wooden bridge spanning the river, and had stopped 
a moment to look at a long branch of flame-colored 
maple that bent over into the stream, when he 
heard footsteps and saw a slight, girlish figure in a 
black dress hurrying along the road, and knew it to 
be Clarie. Straightway, with pulses bounding 
faster than should be, he threw his cigar into the 
stream and waited for her to come up, with not a 
sign of this perturbation visible on his face. 

She was upon the bridge before she discovered 
him. It was impossible for her to retrace her 
steps, and there was nothing left to do but go for- 
ward. She hoped he would not see her ; if he did, 
she devoutly prayed he would not speak to her — 
and so, raising her head with a proud eflbrt, she 
walked swiftly on. 

As she came up to him, he raised his hat simply 
with a good-evening,’ and a steady look out of 
his brown-gray eyes, which brought the color into 
her cheeks for a moment ; then she bent her head 
in response to his bow, and swept on without rais- 
ing her eyes. 


ii6 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


The young doctor had paused to look at her 
without another word. Clarie looked more beau- 
tiful and more unapproachable than ever to him. 
She had been walking rapidly, and that gave her 
cheeks an unusual glow perhaps ; her reddish gold 
hair was coiled in careless broad braids about her 
brow, partly covered by a black chip hat, low in 
the crown, with a floating veil twisted about it. 
Although her black dress was unrelieved by even 
a band of white about the throat, the severe sim- 
plicity of it was becoming. She was looking well, 
and she knew it, and when she dropped her eyes, 
it was with a thoroughly vexed feeling that Doctor 
Lovell might be admiring her too. If she had 
glanced at the man she would have seen another 
expression in his eyes — a something wistful and 
tender — something powerful enough to stir to the 
utmost the depths of his nature. 

I want you to say that you have forgiven me,^’ 
he said, with grave brusquerie^ and in a voice that 
would have been pitiful and pleading but for the 
manliness underlying it. 

Then Clarie turned to look at him, a deeper 
color rising to her cheeks, her eyes dilating, her 
pulses quickening. “ I — I do not understand you ; 
I have nothing to forgive,” she replied, coldly. 
“ My sisters will be waiting for me. Good-evening.” 


FACING THE FOE. 


II7 


“One moment,” he exclaimed eagerly, for he 
was strangely moved by this unexpected meeting. 
“ I wished to say more : I have thought so much 
about you — you must not think me impertinent, 
but I keep thinking of you all the time. My 
coming here — indeed all the circumstances attend- 
ing it have been fraught with so much unhappiness, 
and your bereavement following so closely upon 
my resolve to stay. You must know how I feel. 
I can not express it in words, but I shall not be 
happy until I have your assurance that you have 
forgiven me the wrong you did me in thought. 
For I did do all in my power to save your father’s 
life. If there had been a thousand physicians here, 
they would have told you the same thing.” 

“Yes, I know,” said Clarie, with a faint smile. 
“ You must not ask my forgiveness. I must beg 
yours. I spoke cruelly, but my heart was ready to 
break. I — I am very glad to ask your pardon,” 
she added with a proud sort of humility, as if, now 
that the disagreeable task were done, she would be 
rid of him forever. 

“ Thanks, thanks ! ” exclaimed the doctor warmly, 
extending his hand, and then dropping it to his 
side again when he saw no responsive movement. 
“ But you must not blame yourself ; I knew how 
you felt. I tried to forget your words, but they 


Ii8 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


have rung in my ears ever since they were uttered. 
For one thing, I could see that you disliked my 
coming here. I did not intend to stay after my 
first interview with your father.” 

It is not necessary to explain your motives to 
me,” replied Clarie a little frigidly. 

Please allow me to explain,” he cried with a 
swelling heart, and with a sort of despairing en- 
treaty in his voice. I have so longed for this 
moment, and now I must speak. I do not want 
you to blame me too much. Everything went 
wrong from the beginning, but I can not, I can 
not think my coming here added such anxiety to 
your father’s mind that it hastened his illness and 
death. Death must come to us all, and it would 
have come to him surely, and in just this way.” 

“ I know,” said Clarie^ and then tears came into 
her eyes. She looked up at him through those 
mists of bitter moisture and asked : Why do you 
tell me this ? ” with a sudden flush that was like 
anger — a certain vehemence of manner and tone 
peculiar to her. 

“ Because everything has seemed against me ; 
that is, I have never been able to right myself in 
your eyes. From the first you have looked upon 
me as your natural enemy, and I have wanted you 
to be my friend. God knows I would have been 


FACING THE FOE. 


1 19 

glad enough to have averted all the misery that 
has followed coming, but I can not look upon 
myself as its author. I had told your father that 
I was not going to settle here. We talked it over 
the very first evening that I called upon him, but 
I think it was Mrs. Abury’s influence that made 
me reverse that decision. Her child was ill, and 
she called me in to see him. You know we are 
old friends, that is, she is a friend of my friends, 
and we have always known a great deal of each 
other.” 

“ Mrs. Abury is very nice,” said Clarie, not trust- 
ing herself to say more, though her heart was hot 
with indignation against that self-satisfied matron. 
Nice? She hated nice people! She would rather 
die than be called ‘‘ nice ” by any one, she thought. 
These nice people had all gone over to the enemy, 
and her father, who had toiled among them all his 
life, was already well-nigh forgotten. Her heart 
swelled with the injustice of the world, its cruelty, 
its falsity, its utter hollowness, while the doctor 
went on : 

It was seeing her and talking with her that 
decided me. I told your father so, and he did not 
discourage me ; and having no settled plans of 
my own, I concluded to stay. I have absolutely 
no ties, you know.” 


120 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


I beg your pardon, I don’t know,” said Clarie, 
and then she laughed softly and flashed a look up 
at him under her long lashes, forgetting for the 
moment that this was the man against whom she 
had determined to wage hostilities for life, but 
who, in spite of her resistance, was fast overcom- 
ing that dislike. “ Thank you very much for say- 
ing all this to me,” she added, hurriedly, half 
angry with herself to feel that he was less her 
enemy than before this conversation. “ I shall not 
forget it, but now it is getting late, and I must say 
good-evening.” 

Don’t go ! ” he cried, almost vehemently, his 
usually sombre eyes all aglow, the lines of his 
somewhat hard face relaxing as he spoke. “ I 
wish to say more to you — I had been think- 
ing—” 

‘‘Yes?” said Clarie, pausing in her retreat. 

“ I have been saying so much to you about 
myself, and yet not telling you really why I wanted 
to stay here. It seemed to me that all my life — 
spent in the whirl of big cities and in foreign 
places, now here, now there — was such an artificial 
existence, a sort of vegetation, even when I seemed 
to be gaining most, and having widest fields to 
glean among ; and I wanted to get into some quiet 
spot and take hold of life — a true sort of life — and 


FACING THE FOE, 


I2I 


live it earnestly and devotedly — to make my pro- 
fession what it undeniably ought to be, a some- 
thing better and truer than a mere profession. I 1/ 
would not dare tell you all my aspirations and 
longings about it, and how much more good I feel 
that I can do in a place like this than to lose my- 
self in one of our busy thoroughfares.” 

I think I know what you mean,” replied Clarie. 

Papa felt thus. No career which he could map 
out for himself seemed more beautiful or true.” 

And then — feeling thus — any place can be our 
home. You were laughing at me. Miss Gallatin, a 
moment since, because I was taking it for granted 
you knew I had no ties to hold me to any given 
spot,” said Doctor Lovell, for once in his life talk- 
ing against time, though inwardly avowing himself 
an intolerable idiot for so doing ; and it brings to 
mind those quaint, homely lines of Donne’s upon 
the snail — do you know them? No? I think 
they run something this way, though I am free to 
confess I am not given to remembering or quoting 
poetry : 

“ ‘ Be thou thine own home and in thyself dwell. 

Inn anywhere. 

And seeing the snail which everywhere doth roam, 
Carrying his own home still, still is at home, 

F ollow (for he is easy passed) this snail ; 

Be thine own palace or the world thy jail.’ ” 


122 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


This wasn’t at all the sort of thing that he had 
been planning to say to Clarie Gallatin for so 
many weeks ; but then the things that we say and 
do in real life do not come and go with the same 
ease as the events of a dream. He had forgotten 
the nice little speech that he had thought com- 
mitted to memory. His resources and artifices 
were exhausted. He had kept her standing too 
long^ already, forgetting in the absolute tumult of 
his thoughts that there was any world beyond the 
planks on which they were lingering, and the 
stretch of purpling sky arching above them. 

“ I think I had better go,” said Clarie, feeling 
anxious to end the interview, and moving de- 
cidedly away. My sisters will be wondering 
what has delayed me.” 

“ But do you never allow yourself to be detained ? 
I have heard of your visits sometimes among my 
patients when the school is over.” 

“ But then I have the rector usually to go home 
with me.” 

“Yes; but there is really an hour of twilight 
yet, and why may I not see you safely to your own 
door, if the darkness does overtake us ? ” 

“Because the rector and little Jem Goswald will 
both be wondering why you do not come to pay 
your promised visit, and because I infinitely prefer 


FA CING THE FOE. 


123 


walking home alone. No — I didn’t mean to be 
rude — thank you very much, and good-night.” 

“ I shall end by loving her,” thought the young 
physician as he watched her retreating figure. 
“What a muff I was not to insist upon walking 
home with her. Chantelling would — or anybody 
else. How much pluck such quiet little fellows 
have. The rector wouldn’t have given her a chance 
to refuse him.” 

Then he checked himself with an impatient 
gesture. 

“ She will never think of you, Ray Lovell,” he 
said rebukingly. 


CHAPTER X. 


DEBBY. 

L ittle Jem Goswald, whom Doctor Lovell 
had been called in to see, was ill with fever 
again. 

He was a freckle-faced, uninteresting lad of ten 
or thereabouts, employed in the mill as a bobbin- 
boy ever since he had been old enough to under- 
stand the use of his hands. His parents were 
dead, and the only relative he had in the world 
was a sister nearly twelve years older than he — a 
girl with that pathetic sort of face that one often 
finds among the very poor — a look as if she yearned 
for and wanted something more than her bare, 
unlovely life promised her. She, too, had worked 
in the mill from her early childhood, beginning as 
little Jem had begun, and finally working up to the 
loom. Her mother had worked thus before her, 
and so had her grandmother ; they had been born 
and bred in noisy poverty ; they had labored hard 
and fared ill ; they had breathed an atmosphere 
that had been impure, morally and physically, and 
yet there was a certain latent gentleness and re- 

(124) 


finement that they had handed down to Debby 
as her only heritage, and perhaps it was this that 
had appealed to , the heart of the sensitive little 
rector with a strength that could not be classed 
among mere emotions. 

For one thing Debby was slightly deformed. 
That, in itself, made her an object of pity. Her 
girl companions had no delicacy in commenting 
upon -this fact, and the young men stood aloof from 
her. When she first found out that she was unlike 
other girls, it made her bitter and hard, and the 
painful realities of the future, acting on her pecul- 
iarly intense nature, gave her a feeling of resent- 
ment against the world — aye, even against God 
himself sometimes. What had she done that He 
should be so cruel to her? Why had she been sin- 
gled out ? She read a verse in the Bible furtively 
sometimes, with a wistful pang in her heart, to 
have it made clear to her, that passage where God 
spoke the word, and fanned the breath of immor- 
tality into a flame, and man became a living soul — 
‘‘in His own image created He him.” And then 
again she asked what had she done that she had 
been thus singled out? 

So, because she could not answer this question, 
and because, mingled with it, there grew that sub- 
tle sense of resentment, she neither used her Bible 


126 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


nor cared for its teachings. Clearly it was not 
meant for such as she. When her mother died, 
and the rector of St. Michael’s called upon her 
after the funeral, as he felt in duty bound to do, 
he found that she was just as much of a problem to 
him as. she was to other people. With a deep 
sense of wrong somewhere, it was not possible for 
him to advance one step with her. Yet there was 
that in her face which told him to persevere. Now 
and then, in his unobtrusive way, he found some 
chance of doing her a good turn, but it was always 
done so quietly and simply that she was saved the 
humility of feeling herself placed under an obliga- 
tion. To church she steadfastly refused to go, but 
when the plan of the mill-school was broached, to 
the surprise of everybody, and perhaps to none 
more than the rector himself, Debby added her 
name to the list of scholars, and, taking Jem by 
the hand, was one of the first to enter the room. 

The Reverend Harcourt had taken heart at this. 
Open opposition was less baffling to him than 
cool indifference. In the one case he felt that he 
had something tangible to overcome, and it gave 
him a new impulse ; in the other he could have no 
clew for action. And under all his seeming em- 
barrassment of manner and his little weak doubts 
of himself, there was a shade of stubbornness that. 


DEBB Y. 


27 


when he conquered grandly, Miss Clem was wont 
to call his firmness, and when he failed she willing- 
ly denominated as obstinacy. 

The rector had been interested in Debby’s face 
as well as in her pitiful history. It was no small 
thing for a young girl, with a delicate, misshapen 
frame, to sit by a noisy loom day after day and to 
care for a little baby brother at night ; and this was 
what Debby had done ever since Jem had been 
two years old, and her mother had passed out of 
the whirl, and noise, and weariness of this life into 
the quiet and rest of that other and unknown one. 
Mr. Chantelling, with his whole soul in his work, 
had become very dear to the dying woman ; but 
the subtle change that he slowly watched coming 
over the feeble, fading mind, had no seeming effect 
upon the deformed daughter. It is true she gave 
the Reverend Harcourt a sort of negative welcome, 
when he still persisted in coming to the house at 
every tangible excuse that offered, after the funeral. 
But he had a sensitive dread of intrusion, and 
mere visiting as a matter of parochial routine was 
a thing he could never lend himself to in any way. 
Thus he made very little headway with Debby Gos- 
wald. Sometimes she would see him, sometimes 
she would not. She was scarcely ever away from 
little Jem, to whom she gave more of a mother's 


128 


THE OTHER HOUSE, 


than sister’s care ; and though, when she was forced 
into conversation, it was with a grave quiet that 
looked almost like grateful interest, he was uncom- 
fortably conscious that she regarded him as a man 
who was watching his opportunity to force “ re- 
ligion,” as the mill girls called it, on her. 

Miss Clem was not the only one who felt the 
Reverend Harcourt’s infirmities. Debby Goswald 
saw the little substratum of firmness, and christen- 
ed it obstinacy too, setting her face like flint 
against it. 

But when Jem was taken ill with fever, that 
melted the girl’s heart and brought her metaphori- 
cally to the rector’s feet. If Jem was taken away, 
that would be the last drop in her full cup. She 
wanted the rector’s care, and she wanted his 
prayers; if it had been good for her mother, it 
would be good for her, and the willful, proud heart 
of Debby grew soft as a little child’s. This feelipg 
gained strength as time went on, though there was 
a certain .shamefacedness in her manner when she 
appeared at the school which Clarie’s straightfor- 
ward kindness had done much to subdue. In fact, 
Debby had learned to regard the young girl with a 
sort of idolatrous feeling ; a reverence for her 
beauty, her pretty, winning ways, her fascination 
of dress and manner, and that intangible charm 


DEBB Y. 


129 


of sympathy which was diffused more than ex- 
pressed. 

When Jem got better she took him by the hand 
and led him to a seat by her side in the mill-school. 
Her companions laughed and whispered a little 
among themselves at this sudden change in Debby ; 
but when they questioned her, she replied quite 
composedly that “ she’d come for the very same 
reason that brought them there, and if they’d got 
anything to say for themselves, why, then, she’d 
hear it ; ” so after that they found there was less to 
laugh about than they had imagined. 

As for Clarie, she had already been wanting to 
know something of the workings of life in the lower 
social strata — to get at their ways of thinking and 
living, and, with a keen feeling of how hard it must 
be to watch the prosperity of others from that 
stand-point, she set about her task. 

No one was afraid of her, and no one disliked 
her. The solemn-eyed, bald-headed babies that 
were brought out for her inspection sometimes 
were not afraid of her either ; and even the boys, 
playing marbles in the side streets, never stared at 
her with cool impertinence, but gave her — first 
.as the doctor’s daughter, and afterward as the 
‘‘ teacher a world of deference in their way. 

“Awful pretty!” and “My eye, aint she a 
6 ^ 


130 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


beauty ! ” were about the worst encomiums that 
she ever heard passed upon herself; for Clarie very 
often caught their opinions, never uttered in a very 
low tone of voice, though she assumed a moderate 
amount of deafness. 

So the rector’s stubborn purpose, and Clarie’s 
little artifices, and the pleasure that the mill-school 
gave her, all tended to make it an easy thing 
for Debby to appear one Sunday evening at St. 
Michael’s, again with Jem by the hand, both slink- 
ing into a seat near the door. No one turned to 
look at her, and on her part she seemed to see no- 
body but the rector, upon whom her eyes were 
fastened all through the service. And he — when he 
stood up before the congregation — for the first 
time in many years, saw something besides May 
Gallatin’s earnest, thoughtful eyes fixed on his. 
They looked past and beyond her to the wistful 
face of the mill girl, staring out from under the 
shadow of the arches, and he spoke with a power 
and a pathos that fairly made him tremble. He 
put aside the elaborately-prepared sermon for that 
night. He forgot the social status of the unexcep- 
tionable congregation before him ; he forgot the 
silks, the laces, the fine attire ; he forgot all but 
one immortal soul, hungry for the bread of life, 


DEBB Y. 


I3I 

and he preached to that soul of nothing but the 
Cross and the love of the Crucified. 

Miss Clem, who had peeped at the finely-writ-, 
ten discourse, enclosed in the velvet cover which 
she had fashioned for him with her own hands, 
looked up amazed at the change of text as well as 
the pathos and pleading in his voice ; and Mrs. 
Abury awoke from a very complacent reverie to 
wonder how a man with such clear ideas of ad- 
vance could descend to such an undeniably Meth-' 
odistical style of oratory. She did delight in Mr. 
Chantelling usually ; but — really now, when he re- 
flected that he was preaching to those who had 
been declared regenerate at baptism — really he 
was presuming a little, wasn’t he ? — trenching up- 
on the dignity of the Church, as it were, when he 
called upon them to prostrate themselves at the 
foot of the cross. That was the sort of thing to do 
on Ash-Wednesday, and other appointed services 
during Lent ; there being a prescribed method for 
repentance which every sound Churchman usually 
understood. And at other seasons — that is, ordi- 
narily — the Church never called her regenerate chil- 
dren such very startling names as lost sinners. It 
was positively six months to Lent, and why Mr. 
Chantelling should burst out after such an unwar- 


132 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


rantable fashion was a puzzle. There were no per- 
ishing souls within the pure walls of St. Michael’s ! 
She determined to talk it over with Mr. Abury 
that very night before she went to bed. He was 
the senior warden, and really he ought to know 
about such matters, or else he had no business to 
be in that position. A senior warden, according to 
Mrs. Abury’s way of thinking, occupied a relative 
position to the Church only to be compared with 
that of Lord Beaconsfield to Parliament, or Bis- 
marck’s firm foothold with the Kaiser. And Mrs. 
Abury buttoned the third button of her primrose 
glove, sighed deeply, and rested complacently in 
the reflection that she had taken her confirmation 
vows upon herself when she was barely twelve 
years of age. Mr. Chantelling surely could say 
nothing to her after that ! 

When the service was ended, the rector, walking 
home slowly, alone, with hands crossed behind 
him and head bent in thought, was surprised to en- 
counter Debby lingering at the rectory gate. He 
put out his hand with a glad impulse, but waited 
for her to speak, though his heart was still beat- 
ing quick and his pulse throbbing with intense 
emotion. 

“ I waited,” she^aid tremulously, ^Ho see you. I 
have only a minute to stop. I let Jem go oil alone. 


DEB BY. 


. 133 


I couldn’t rest till I told you. I never troubled my- 
self with Bible-reading much ; there was always a 
verse that was coming up and blotting every other 
one out, and I felt bitter and hard about it. But 
I’ve been all wrong ; and it’s you — you and Miss 
Clarice — as made me see it. And I listened to you 
to-night ; oh ! I listened with my whole soul, Mr 
Chantelling ” — the words breaking from her with a 
sort of cry — and I’ve made up my mind.” 

There was a mist before the little rector’s eyes, 
and for a moment he could not see. But if he 
could not see he could speak, and he found words 
to say, words of boldness and truth, the very words 
that the newly-awakened soul had been longing to 
hear uttered. 

And Debby went home that night for the first 
time in her life comforted. 

But the Rev. Harcourt had a great deal of 
trouble for the remainder of the evening with his 
vision ; and Miss Clem, watching him with her 
most affectionate air of solicitude, believed that it 
was a very bad thing for him to wear such exceed- 
ingly strong glasses. 

I always did detest that last new pair, Har- 
court, my dear,” she rambled on. “Just because 
they have such thin little steel rims the oculist 
seemed determined to put more strength in the 


134 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


glass — the law of compensation, I suppose; but 
you are the one who has to suffer for it ; your eyes 
are quite red, I declare. And oh, Harcourt, I do 
think nice gold spectacles would look so much bet- 
ter ! Why, when I was a girl, the poorest person 
in the land had thick-rimmed silver ones ; and 
what would our grandfather — dear, sainted soul — 
have said if he could have looked forward to you, 
a clergyman, with a little rim of steel that looks 
like a needleful of black silk over your nose? 
Harcourt, I don’t believe you heard a word that I 
said ; now, did you ? 

man is a provoking creature!” sighed the 
estimable lady. I am certain that he never 
heard a word.” 


CHAPTER XI. 


PEGASUS IN HARNESS. 

TV yr AY GALLATIN’S problems had been very 
hard to solve ever since the beginning of 
September. 

A strange hush and silence had come into her 
life. The great blow had fallen, but its reverbera- 
tions had ceased, and the echoes were still. She 
was glad to stay on peacefully in the old home, 
where everything spoke to her in the sweet lan- 
guage of memory ; but it was a curious thing to 
settle down to, this new life of theirs. The library, 
which had been such a cheery gathering-place for 
the family, was now a dining-room, and the old 
dining-room and office were turned into school- 
rooms. Rows of neat desks took the place of the 
familiar furniture, the library-table was spread with 
maps and drawing- materials, and Clarie, gravely 
seated in one of the office-chairs, tried to put her 
heart-aches away and forget the dear presence that 
had once pervaded the place. She taught her pu- 
pils with erect head and firmly-pressed lips, but 
May and Alice both noticed how bright and dry 

(135) 


136 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


her eyes were, and what a hot flush of pain there 
was on her cheeks. If they only could have chosen 
any other room ! but then, “ Where was the use ? 
Clarie asked wearily, when May proposed the 
drawing-room. In trouble, alas! “there is no 
royal road.” 

So Clarie never complained, but went about per- 
forming every duty with a swelling heart and that 
air of proud defiance that she had worn from the 
very first. The school duties all fell upon May 
and Clarie, Alice having something evidently of 
more importance on her mind. It puzzled May 
often to guess what it could be, and whether her 
cheerfulness was real, or assumed only to cover a 
certain restlessness and anxiety quite unusual to 
one of her calm nature. 

People looked on very quietly and said the Gal- 
latins had been so sensible. It was so much better 
to make the best of a bad thing, and it was greatly 
to their credit, et cetera^ ct cetera. And as for sym- 
pathy, why, they had a perfect flood of it at first ; 
but after the school was fairly started it seemed 
quite the natural thing to stand aloof and let the 
three girls help themselves. Friends did not turn 
away from them— that would be too cruel an act 
to lay at the door of the dear world’s friendship. 
In these days of enlightenment and progress it is 


PEGASUS IN HARNESS. 


137 


considered a false theory to offer the cold shoulder 
to those brave women who seek to carve out their 
own living. No matter what the practice may 
prove to be in the end, the theory remains one of 
the prettiest little theories to bandy sentiment 
over, all the same. And, after the family friends 
had offered their sympathy, they were quite ready 
to stand aside. Perhaps we ought to be grateful 
if we are left alone under such circumstances. If 
all the ingredients of a needed, but loathsome 
medicine are mingled in the same draught we are 
not able to distinguish the full and revolting taste 
of each ; so when the loss was two-fold, and death 
and poverty, hand-in-hand, walked into the old 
home and took up their abode with the sisters, it 
was just as easy to bear as if friends had remained 
in plenty. Clarie thought the poverty was a bless- 
ing. It gave them something to think about, and 
even that was a grain of comfort. 

And so the girls gave themselves to calculations 
and accounts that were dreary and fatiguing enough 
to them. They were all young and untried, and it 
was a new and overwhelming thing to find that after 
a few weeks there was no money. May took her ac- 
counts resolutely into the drawing-room and begged 
Miss Clem to inspect them with her, one day when 
the school was over. May’s eyes were very red and 


138 THE OTHER HOUSE. 

heavy, and there was no denying that there had 
been tears in them a good many times that day. 

Alice joined the family conclave, but quite hum- 
bly, as if she really had no suggestions to make, 
and seated herself by the window dreamily enough, 
leaning her head on her hand and letting her eyes 
wander away from May’s account-books out into 
the garden beyond, where the bright autumn 
flowers were glowing in the afternoon sunshine. 
She was thinking of the tiger-lilies, and calling 
thern, in her heart, “ stately Arabian women,” in a 
vague effort to recall some little lines which she re- 
membered now with a wistful yearning, that she 
might thus immortalize a flower, a leaf, a tree, in 
that way. Oh, if her poem were only accepted ! 
Then May need not try her poor eyes any more 
over those miserable housekeeping books. She 
would be sure to have a brain and fingers that 
never wearied penning the sweetest songs ! Why 
didn’t everybody write, when the world was full of 
such beauty, and there was so much, so much to 
say ? She was sure she should never hesitate for 
words ; no, the thoughts were all in her heart ; all 
they tarried for was the summons to bring them 
forth. Clearly Alice was living in another world, 
for she could' not fathom the depth of despair 
which sounded in May’s voice. 


PEGASUS IN HARNESS. 


139 


“We shall have to give up the two servants, 
I fear, Miss Clem, and content ourselves with one 
and with the school. Why, there are eighteen 
scholars already, you know — more than I dreamed 
we could have ; but of course there will be no pay 
until the quarter is over, and the money — where is 
the money coming from, do you suppose? If we 
go on as we are doing we shall soon come to the 
end of everything. A big house, and, now that 
Michael is gone, all that waste of .land,’' waving 
her hand toward the garden. 

“ Waste ? ” cried Alice, waking out of her reverie, 
“why, it is full to overflowing! Where are your 
eyes, dear ? ” 

“Full of trees, grass, flowers, and sunshine, you 
silly child 1 There isn’t anything to eat — that is, 
of any consequence.” 

“You will turn cannibal next and devour us all,” 
smiled Alice serenely. 

“ But how to live,” pondered May, knitting her 
brows. “ A great garden with nothing useful in it 
but a little fruit and some berries, and we — five of 
us — wanting to eat three times a day. We can’t 
do it ; we might as well try to fly. And, Miss Clem, 
something must be done.” 

“ That is very true,” sighed Miss Clem, turning 
her head on one side and giving an oracular look 


140 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


out of her faded eyes. Of course, my dear, under 
such circumstances there is only one thing to be 
done. But then,” she added less briskly, “ I don’t 
know what that thing is, do you ? Perhaps Har- 
court might tell us. We’ll ask him, and perhaps it 
would be as well to let one servant go. I am sure^ 
you will be able to manage ; and then you receive 
no company now.” 

Oh, we can get along very nicely with one serv- 
ant,” cried Clarie, who had come in very quietly, 
with her bonnet and sacque on, and a German book 
and roll of music in her hand. “ I am young and 
strong, and, dear Miss Clem, I haven’t half work 
enough to do ; not enough to keep me busy, as I 
want to be, from morning until night. Don’t let 
that little frown stay between your brows. May, 
dear; if I hadn’t been the youngest I should have 
advised letting Bridget go weeks ago. She was al- 
ways horrid ! ” cried Clarie, seeking desperately for 
some charge to hurl at the unoffending girl’s door, 
and so have the felicity of relieving her mind, for 
she had a cold, shuddering presentiment that she 
had brought bad news to Alice. 

She had been to the post-office and found a yel- 
low-enveloped, business-looking letter, with the ad- 
dress of a popular magazine stamped on one side ; 
and, weighing it in her calculating little hand, she 


PE GA S US IN HA RNESS. 1 4 1 

had come to the conclusion that it was much too 
thick to contain a simple note of thanks and a check 
for a munificent sum. She kept it in her pocket, 
with her fingers closed tightly over it, longing to 
show it to Alice and yet dreading the shock. Alice 
looked so peaceful and pensive in her black muslin, 
with a little frill of white about the throat, and her 
slender hands, all unused to work, folded together 
idly in her lap. She wished she would look up, for 
she was in a hurry to go out and give two or three 
lessons. Miss Clem would be sure to ask all about 
the letter, and Alice was so sensitive ; besides, it 
was a secret which her sister had confided to her; 
she had no right to tell it before all the others. 

But Alice, after one glance at Clarie, had turned 
her eyes out upon the garden walk, where tall, 
white clumps of chrysanthemums were clustering. 
She was still thinking of the “ lilies, tiger-lilies,’' in 
that other poem which had touched her heart so 
long ago, and unconsciously she began rhyming to 
herself : 

“ Down the prim, old-fashioned border, 

Tall and fair they stand ; 

Like a band of snowy maidens, 

Clasping snowy hands." 

That would do for a beginning, she was sure, and 
she would not be pirating ” — wasn’t that what 


142 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


they called it? — no, not in the least. To be sure, 
she never would have thought of the chrysanthe- 
mums but for the memory of the tiger-lilies. The 
poet’s thoughts had suggested other thoughts to 
her ; but that was just like the civilities of the world 
ordinarily — a mere interchange of sentiment, as it 
were — and perhaps her chrysanthemums would be 
just as acceptable to the' general public as some- 
body else’s tiger-lilies, and that would be the name 
she would give it, and this should be the first line, 
and she began rehearsing to herself : 

“ Down the prim, old-fashioned border.” 

“Alice,” whispered Clarie, bending over and 
speaking hurriedly, “see. I’ll put something in the 
hat-stand drawer for you as I go out." I must give 
my lessons, or I’d stay and talk it over with you ; 
and May dear. Miss Clem will advise you and 
find a sure way out of all your difficulties, I am 
certain.” 

But poor May was too full of cares to see the hu- 
mor and futility of the suggestion, and Clarie went 
on, “ And there is always the rector ; I am sure I 
couldn’t live without him.” 

But at the undisguised fervor of this speech poor 
Miss Clem fairly ground her teeth in agony. She 
had seen such evident signs of perfect sympathy 


PEGASUS IN HARNESS. 


143 


between her brother and Clarie all along, and this 
mill-school had only tended to strengthen the bond. 
Oh ! really it was a shame to Alice that she did 
not insist upon taking a class too. “ Alice, dear,’* 
she began ; but Alice and Clarie had both van- 
ished, and she and May were left alone to counsel 
and plan. 

“ May,” she said, putting both hands on her 
young friend’s shoulder, and compelling her to look 
into her face ; yes, I was sure of it ; there have 
been tears in your eyes all along. Don’t cry, dear. 
I am sure some way will be opened, and we are not 
poor. Harcourt and I can do without many 
things, and we can let you have some money, I 
am sure. I will speak to him about it this very 
night.” 

Dear Miss Clem,” said May, we want work, 
not charity, though I thank you and love you all 
the same. We might accept a temporary loan un- 
til the school had become a paying thing, but that 
is all I would consent to do, and I will not do even 
that unless Mr. Chantelling gives his approval of 
the step.” 

''Oh, but he will be sure to do that. Why, 
May, he acts in the strangest way. He wanted 
me long ago to offer you money ; you know I had 
so much put aside when I was to have been mar- 


144 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


ried ; my dear father never would let me touch it 
while he was alive, and when Harcourt was old 
enough to understand, he made me do the same 
thing. Now there’s that money doing no one 
good, and oh ! May, it is something like my wed- 
ding-dress — folded up and put away and good for 
nothing. And I don’t believe God intends such 
things to be, any more with money than wedding- 
dresses. Why, my love, some day I want to show 
you that dress. Such a funny little waist, and all 
piped and corded, and the satin — well, it is yellow 
enough now, but it cost eight and sixpence the 
yard, and very dear it was for those times.” 

“Yes,” said May, gently patting the soft old 
hand that trembled within hers. “ Oh, how I 
thank you for all your kindness.” 

“ Never mind the kindness, my dear. Of course 
you can have the money — the money is nothing. 
But sometimes. May, I have wondered if I would 
have been different — any happier, any better, for 
instance — if I had worn that wedding-dress.” 

“ May,” said Alice, opening the door softly and 
coming up to her side, “ May, I have let you talk 
and plan all the morning, but I have never said a 
word about what I can do ; but. Miss Clem, you 
will speak for me — you :-yill persuade May that I 
can do a great deal.” 


PEGASUS IN HARNESS, 


145 


Yes, dear,'’ said Miss Clem, looking up at Alice 
with pride in her eyes. ^^You can do more than 
any one of them if you only have the will. I have 
always said it. I have always told Harcourt you 
were the wise one of the family after all.” 

Alice had dropped down on the carpet by May’s 
side ; her cheeks were flushed and there was a 
pathetic trembling about her mouth. “ I have 
tried to help every way that I could, but I am not 
wise — I am not wise. Oh, Miss Clem, I have been 
so silly and vain and presuming all along, but now 
I am going to help. I can keep the house beauti- 
fully, May, and Bridget can go to-morrow if she 
likes. There is the mending, and the linen, and 
the silver to see to, and all the dusting, and the 
marketing, and the lamps. Only see what a load 
it will be off your mind. And then I can take the 
class in botany. It was always my weakness, 
flowers,” remembering with a pang how she had 
fondly immortalized the chrysanthemums on the 
garden path a few moments before. “ I shall be 
sure to be successful in teaching that. And oh. 
May, after a time I shall learn to do • only try me, 
dear ; let me have work — ever so much of it — to 
do. That is all I wish now.” 

Why, Allie ! Allie ! ” said May, putting her 
cool, firm fingers on the young girl’s he^d. “ What 
7 


146 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


is the matter with our placid little Allie, to-day ? 
What has gone wrong? ” 

‘‘Nothing has gone wrong; it has all come 
right,” she said, bravely forcing back the tears and 
looking up at both May and Miss Clem with a 
smile that had something pitiful, despite its 
bravery, in it. “ Nothing has happened except 
that r want to bear my share of the burden now. 
I have been an idler too long.” 

And so Alice, with her own hands, fastened the 
harness upon herself, and looked forward to noth- 
ing but long days of drudgery and toil ; a heavy 
yoke from which her very soul had revolted only a 
short time before, but which now she was glad to 
bend her neck to receive. Anything to rid her 
of her silly dreams ! But oh, why couldn’t she 
have said something so sweet and compelling that 
all the world would have been glad to stop and 
listen ? 

When Clarie came home, tired and flushed with 
giving two music and one German lesson, she 
looked in vain for either of her sisters. “ Miss 
May was at the annex,” Bridget informed her. 
“ She had gone over with some books and papers, 
and she had not seen her since, and tea was all 
ready and waiting ; should she go and call Miss 
May?” 


PEGASUS IN HARNESS. 1 47 

“To be sure,” Clarie answered, and then walked 
on up to her own room. Her sister’s door was 
open, and a candle burning on the toilet table. 

“ Clarie, is that you ? ” cried a voice that seemed 
half smothered in pillows. 

“Yes, it is; but your room is in total darkness, 
and it is past the tea hour.” 

“ I don’t care for tea, I am afraid I don’t care for 
much of anything now ! Come in, do, where I can 
touch you. I’m on the bed. Oh, Clarie, the let- 
ter was such a disappointment ! ” 

“ I was afraid so, dear. There ! Don’t think 
any more about it. I am afraid they are an ill- 
conditioned lot, those editors. I hope he didn’t 
say anything rude.” 

“ Rude ? Here is the worst part of it ; he never 
said a word ! It is a little printed slip— ‘ The 
editor returns with thanks the enclosed MSS. to 

Miss , and regrets his inability to accept it,* 

etc. Oh ! it is all very polite, I assure you.” 

“What a shame!” cried Clarie flushing; “he 
might have acknowledged it was pretty.” 

“ Oh, no ; he couldn’t say that, for then he would 
have been obliged to give some very odd excuse 
for not taking it ; if he granted it was pretty, why 
should he refuse it? and, Clarie dear. I’m afraid it 
was very poor stuff.” 


148 THE OTHER HOUSE. 

It w^s nothing of the kind ! ” cried Clarie, hot- 
ly; it was very sweet. You know I said as much 
when you read it to me. The only thing I dis- 
liked was that there seemed to be a sort of lie 
about it ; but dear me ! there need be no such fear 
about a lie, or anything else for that matter, if that 
is the cool treatment poems receive. I would not 
mind ; you know it was good.” 

But, the money — oh ! I wanted the money al- 
most as much as I wanted the glory of it ; and — I 
wish I didn’t feel it so — but my heart aches almost 
as much as if I had lost some very, very dear old 
love, so dear that it has almost broken in the 
losing.” 

There was a stifled sob among the pillows, and 
the face that Clarie bent down to kiss was wet with 
tears. 

^‘You can sing your songs to yourself, darling, 
and to me, and I will always listen ; and perhaps 
one of these days, others will be glad, too, to hear. 
Think how much richer you are than I am, even in 
your disappointment. 1 couldn’t write a poem, 
even if I would — not a line! It is the dullest, 
coldest prose I have got to live out ; but you, Allie, 
can turn everything into a poem if you choose ; why, 
your own life can be one long, perfect lyric. That 
is what you dreamers have for your consolation.” 


PEGASUS IN HARNESS. 


149 


“ But I shall dream no more after this/’ replied 
Allie, sadly. “ I am going to work at all sorts of 
humdrum things in real earnest. I begin to think 
that life is a sort of lottery, in which every one 
may put in her hand and draw out joys or sorrows 
— ^whichever chances to come' first — only it is as- 
tonishing how many blanks and how few prizes 
there happen to be ! ” 

“And I am the one that will always be pulling 
out the blanks,” laughed Clarie, “it never will be 
you. Come down-stairs and have a cup of tea. 
You’ll live to have that editor ask your pardon 
yet.” 


CHAPTER XIL 


CLARIE CHANGES HER MIND. 

C LARIE GALLATIN certainly led a very 
busy life. Whatever failing she may have 
had in the past, she could hardly be accused of self- 
indulgence, now that the positive needs of the 
family had been demonstrated. What with school, 
and music, and German lessons out of school, she 
had very little time to waste in yearnings for that 
which had fled or that which might come. 

Happiness had once seemed to her such a cheap 
and natural thing to have ; now it was a Will-o’- 
the-wisp ; a vague, intangible dream ; a something 
that had vanished out of her life and Rft nothing 
more than a faint memory. And work was such a 
barrier to dreaming — such an antidote for pain! 
The rector looked at her with a feeling in his heart 
that there was more of Clarie than even he had 
predicted, and Miss Clem went so far as to confess 
that certainly Clarie Gallatin was developing. She 
saw very little of her young companions, and, ex- 
cept at a class that she had started for German read- 
(150) 


CLARIE CHANGES HER MIND. 


51 


ing, she rarely entered the houses which heretofore 
had always been so ready to open to her. It was 
very seldom that she met Doctor Lovell, although 
he could scarcely be included among those who 
stood aloof from the Gallatins. He had embraced 
every possible opportunity of meeting her ; he was 
continually framing excuses to himself for passing 
the other house, hoping thereby to catch a glimpse 
of her. He longed to know more about her, to 
see what her occupations were ; but he did not 
dare enter the house unbidden. Even Miss Galla- 
tin, who was now the head of the family, had never 
invited him to call after that one sad night of 
watching and death. But he made every excuse, 
in visiting his patients, to drive or walk past her 
abode ; and in the evenings he would pace up and 
down under the shadow of the huge, dark trees, 
laughing himself to very scorn for doing it ; and 
yet feeling it such a consolation to watch the light 
in the drawing-room window. It seemed such a 
boyish thing for a grave man of the world to do — 
so like the pseudo-hero of a dime novel romance ; 
and yet it was an impulse he could or would not 
resist. Sometimes the curtain would be parted 
and the shade undrawn, and he could see Miss 
Clem quite plainly handling her bright-colored 
wools under the soft light of the lamp, or using her 


152 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


eye-glasses with great effect to accentuate some 
important theory she was aiding to develop. And 
there, too, would be the rector, walking backward 
and forward, with arms folded behind him, engaged 
in quiet talk, and perhaps Clarie would be sitting 
in the open window, her head bowed upon her 
hands, and her whole attitude betokening the deep- 
est thought or the deepest dejection ; which could 
it be ? 

The lamp became a sort of beacon light to him, 
and unconsciously he gave himself the habit of 
looking for it. He used to wonder what the sisters 
were doing, and, with a memory of the only even- 
ing that he had spent in the long drawing-room, he 
saw Clarie always in the large easy-chair, with its 
covering of rich red that set off her trim little head 
just as the dark leaves set off the graceful, swaying 
white lily they enfold. And once he met her com- 
ing out of the rectory gate, just as he, after some 
vain subterfuge, had made up his mind to go in ; 
but she gave him such a mere formal bow of recog- 
nition, he could not feel that he had made many 
advances toward friendship. 

She was walking alone one bright afternoon, 
seeking some repose after the dull, fatiguing rou- 
tine of lessons, and, lost in thought, rambled farther 
than usual on her way to Mill Bridge. The road 


CLARIS CHANGES HER MINE. 


153 


was little more than a leafy lane following the 
course of the river, that meandered among the 
green meadows as if it had nothing to do but lose 
itself in the most careless manner in the most en- 
ticing possible places. This was a favorite walk of 
Clarie’s. Tall elms and drooping willows enclosed 
it like a green wall on one side, the turfy river bank 
shut it in on the other. The boundary of her 
rambles was usually Debby Goswald’s cottage, 
where Jem was slowly convalescing after his long 
siege of fever ; but her dread of meeting Dr. Lovell 
had been so intense that she had rather neglected 
the boy latterly. The young physician’s visits, she 
had found out, were most unaccountably irregular. 
If she saw Jem in the morning, he was sure for a 
week after to time his visits with reference to hers ; 
and if she waited until afternoon, she was just as 
certain that he would discontinue the morning 
call. So it came to be a sort of trial between 
them of the strategic capabilities of both — a trial in 
which Clarie usually came off victor, sweeping by 
the doctor with a swift, frigid inclination, remotely 
suggestive of polar temperature, just when he 
thought that an interview could not possibly be 
avoided. It was more than provoking,” she 
thought, these stray meetings ; ” and it made her 
a little neglectful of Jem, when she found that 
7 * 


154 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


she could not avoid them — a fact that the child was 
not slow to repeat to the rector. 

“ Jem has been asking for you again, Clarie,” said 
the Reverend Harcourt ; he is very much hurt at 
your neglect.” 

“ I am so sorry,” remarked Clarie, innocently. It 
is all Miss Abury’s fault ; but I shall go and see 
him to-morrow without fail.” 

And, after school was over, and her lesson with 
Miss Abury ended, she filled a basket with soft, 
green moss and all the late gorgeous autumn 
flowers that she could find, and started for Debby’s 
cottage. But she lingered a little over it, wander- 
ing through the lane, picking a few ferns here and 
there to add to her collection, and then going on 
to the bridge, to fold her arms over the rail and 
look down into the clear water gurgling over the 
loose stones, at the same time watching every ave- 
nue of approach to Debby’s cottage. 

It was all very still and peaceful, and no signs of 
life about the place. Evidently the doctor had 
paid his visit, and that thought decided her. She 
would go and sit with Jem. Why should she make 
a studied avoidance of one man* her sole aim and 
object of life ? She heard nothing as she passed 
swiftly in through the open door of the cottage, and 
paused for a moment with her hand on the latch of 


CLARIS CHANGES HER MIND. 


155 


Jem’s door. When he had been in health, he had 
shared Debby’s bed in the loft up-stairs ; but the air 
was so stifling, and Dr. Lovell had so peremptorily 
insisted upon proper ventilation and as much breath- 
ing space as the narrow limits of the house could 
give, that Debby had brought him down into her 
sitting-room, and placed the bed in a corner near 
the window. When Clarie lifted the latch softly and 
went up to the low cot, she found Jem just closing 
his eyes to sleep. He opened them to look at her 
and give a faint smile of recognition. 

I thought you’d forgotten all about me,” he 
whispered. I missed you so awful bad.” 

“ Oh ! I am sorry, Jem ; but it is nice to be missed, 
too. Close your eyes, dear, and have the sleep that 
I have interrupted, and I’ll sit here by you until you 
wake up. But don’t you want your pillow turned 
first ? ” 

“Oh, if you please,” sighed Jem, looking up with 
sleepy eyes at the pretty figure bending over him. 
“ Are them flowers for me ? ” 

“All of them ; and I’ll put them on this chair, 
where you can pull them over, and arrange them 
yourself when I am gone.” 

She lifted Jem’s head tenderly while she ar- 
ranged the pillows, then sat down, and with her 
cool, soft fingers brushed the boy’s hair from his 


156 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


forehead, until his eyes closed and he was lost in 
dreams. 

The little fellow had been very ill, and the freck- 
led, sunburnt face was now so wan and thin, it gave 
one the impression of a sort of ethereal, spiritualized 
bobbin-boy in Jem’s place. All through the worst 
of the fever Debby had nursed him ; but now that 
he was in a fair way of recovery, she felt forced to 
go back to her loom, and leave her brother to the 
friendly care of the neighbors through the day. The 
child required very little, and most of the time 
would lie in a sort of dreamy calm, saying nothing 
and wanting nothing ; but when his sister came 
home, hurried and flushed, he would put his thin 
arms about her neck and whisper out the things he 
had been pondering over alone. He liked Doctor 
Lovell and the rector, and always brightened visi- 
bly when they came in. Of Clarie he had been a 
little shy at first, but he finally informed Debby he 
liked her best of all. 

Her eyes are so big and shiny. Deb,” he im- 
parted in confidence, and she looks at a feller as 
if she didn’t think of nothing else in the world. 
She likes me, and I her.” And so Debby smiled, 
and was always glad to see him under Miss Clarie’s 
care. 

He slept very quietly for a long time. The room 


157 


^ CLARIE CHANGES HER MIND. 

was quite still, except for Jem’s soft breathing and 
the distant whirr of the looms sounding over the 
river. The sun was setting in thick, red gold 
clouds, and purpling shadows were already stealing 
in the little, low-ceiled room, when Clarie thought 
she heard the approach of some one along the road, 
and almost instinctively felt it to be Dr. Lovell. 
He had a ringing, firm step, which she seemed to 
know by intuition. She was sitting in the window 
close by Jem’s bed, his head resting very quietly 
against her shoulder. She did not dare move and 
disturb the sleeping child, and there was nothing to 
do but sit still and face the enemy again. She gave 
a petulant sigh of annoyance as she turned her 
eyes out of the window. The doctor had been 
smoking and singing a little German song to him- 
self as he came up the path. He stood upon the 
grass outside a moment to throw away his cigar 
and take off his hat for a little look around, and 
she could hear him humming in a rich, deep voice, 

“ Tabak ist mein Leben, 

Dem hah’ ich mich ergeben, ergeben ; 

Tabak ist meine Lust. 

Und eh’ ich ihn sollt’ lassen, 

Viel lieber wollt’ ich ha'-sen, 

Ja, hassen selbst eines Madchen’s Kuss.” 

Clarie smiled scornfully as she listened. She 


158 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


expected nothing better than such sentiments from 
Dr. Lovell. So much for 'his foreign education ! 

Ergeben,, ergebenj' he repeated as he tapped at 
the door; then, without waiting for permission, 
entered, hat still in hand, with his habitual air of 
grave courtesy. 

“Hush!” said Clarie, raising a warning finger. 
“ Doctor Lovell, your patient is asleep.” 

He had been so engrossed in thought that he did 
not notice the young girl, and now, as she spoke, 
he turned toward her and saw what in after years 
he never forgot. She sat with her clear, white face 
toward the light, her finger lifted in warning, her 
mouth scarcely parting with a still, cold smile. 
Beneath the brim of her straw hat, loose fair hair 
waved over the level brows, and the dark-fringed 
violet eyes looked coldly at him, as much as to say, 
“You are an intruder.” There was no sunshine to 
light up the sombre drapery about her; the sky 
was full of purple gloom, making strange shadows 
already in the room, framing her still figure within 
the recessed window with all the fugitive, intangible 
charm of an old Flemish picture. The young man 
felt the glamour of her presence and beauty likb one 
who has been poring over a poem, losing himself in 
it until it has become, as it were, a part of himself. 
He could hardly define the feeling, but he mur- 


CLARIS CHANGES HER MIND. 


159 


mured some indistinct -^ords of pleasure, holding 
out his hand, which she received this time, though 
with evident reluctance. Her own face was rosy 
in the twilight, and he could see it, she was certain. 
It was the very first time that she had blushed at 
meeting him. She was vexed with herself for it, 
and her very vexation made her address him with 
something like friendliness. 

I have been putting Jem to sleep,” she whis- . 
pered, and now you must come again, or — or 
wait until he wakes up,” she added, with her eyes 
cast down. 

I shall certainly wait,” replied the doctor, speak- 
ing in just as low a tone. 

There was a moment’s silence, during which 
Clarie thought what a very odd sensation prejudice 
was. And then she half admitted that there was 
not so much to dislike in Doctor Lovell after all. 
She couldn’t him — in fact, she never should — 

but it was childish and silly to give one’s self over 
to open prejudice. And what was it all about? He 
really had as good a right as any one else to settle in 
Briarly, if he liked it ; but — the world was so wide. 
And why had he taken this little by-path to walk 
in when he might have driven his chariot along the 
king’s highway had he chosen ? Then, with a brief 
spasm of pain, she remembered her father’s words. 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


i6o 

“Try and treat Lovell more politely next tirne ; I 
like him, remember/' Yes, she would descend from 
her pedestal and talk with him — ^just for once. 
They could never have a single sentiment in com- 
mon, she commented loftily ; but perhaps she had 
been unjust, and she was not so narrow-minded 
that she could not afford to be generous, once in a 
way, even with a sworn enemy. And so she looked 
up, a little gleam of mirth stealing across her stat- 
uesque face. 

“ I can not allow you to stand, since I am the 
temporary hostess. Our friend Debby is like Thor- 
eau ; you know he had three chairs, ‘ one for soli- 
tude, two for friendship, three for society ; ’ will you 
take the third, since I and my flowers occupy the 
other two ? ” 

The doctor bowed as he sat down by Clarie's 
side. Their faces were very near each other, their 
eyes meeting, his arresting hers mysteriously. 

“Were you reading to our little friend?” he 
asked with a rather spasmodic attempt to establish 
conversation upon an easy, impersonal footing at 
once, and glancing down at the book which she 
had laid upon the bed. 

“ Oh, no ; I have been giving Miss Abury a les- 
son. You know I am a woman of business now; 
and Miss Abury reads German constantly since her 


CL ARTE CHANGES HER MIND. 


i6i 


engagement. They are going abroad for a year or 
more, and you know it is quite necessary, under 
such circumstances, to understand Goethe,” with 
another little upward glance of mirth in her eyes. 
“ But I fear we are in deep waters; I can not al- 
ways understand him, can you ? ” 

Doctor Lovell picked up the book and saw it 
was the “ Wilhelm Meister.” 

“ I do not wonder,” looking down at the uplifted 
face. “ Pardon me, but you are too young, for one 
thing ; such a book must grow with your growth ; 
it must be read as a life is lived, not crowding it 
all in .a day or a year. Why, that is its very 
theme — the growth of a human soul — the typical 
history of a life of love. I speak as a man and an 
American, remember. The German mind naturally 
would grasp it sooner.” 

“ Then you could never quarrel with me for not 
comprehending Goethe ! • An American and a 
woman ” — with an irresistible attempt at carica- 
ture — “would naturally feel utterly befogged in 
the labyrinths of his spiritual physiology ; and I 
don't like an ideal life to begin with.” 

“ I don’t call Wilhelm’s life an ideal one,” said 
the doctor, as gravely as if intent on some patho- 
logical disquisition. “ It is a simple enough child- 
life at the beginning; rather too full of elaborate 


-1 62 THE OTHER HOUSE. 

and trivial detail at first, but the child grpws 
fast.” 

^‘And then he develops idealism — ah ! Dr. Lovell, 
you need not deny it — and it has been enough of 
a sorrow to me that people who try to lead ideal 
lives must always find out that they can never 
attain to them in this world.” 

*‘True; but by keeping the ideal ever before us 
we may reach a higher standard, perhaps, than 
those who have no conception of it.” 

“ But not the ideal in a Goethean sense. He is 
lofty and noble, and much more religious — at least, 
so my dear father taught me — than the popular 
idea makes him; but I think his ideas are too 
great for me, I can not follow him,” half sadly, as 
if a deep source of regret were involved in the 
failure. 

What a sweet face it was looking into his ! and 
then he drew a long breath at the thought which 
had gone through him, so sharp and sudden he did 
not know whether it were excess of pleasure or ex- 
cess of pain. 

“ But why do you read Goethe then ? ” inter- 
rogated the doctor, with a sense of delight in 
prolonging the conversation. “ Could you not 
select something more suited to your years and 
taste? ” 


CLARIE CHANGES HER MIND. 


163 


Mr. Harrison wishes his future wife to dip into 
something more intellectual than Adler or Otto. 
She is quite a proficient already in asking for Hhe 
golden candlestick of the good tailor/ or ‘ the 
pretty ribbon of the pretty dog/ colloquialisms 
which will be of great value to her in a foreign 
land.” She was looking up mischievously. “ I 
hope you realize my position, Doctor Lovell ; do 
not forget that I am a school-mistress now.” 

There was a little pause, a trying pause to 
Clarie ; a painful one to the young physician, who 
saw something in her face besides the forced gayety. 
She had grown paler, and thinner too, since he had 
seen her last, and when he spoke it was in his direct 
way, but with an emotion that surprised her. 

“You are not well. Miss Gallatin; you are very 
pale. Forgive me, but I fear that life has been a 
solemn problem to you lately. You are not well 
or happy.” 

It was impossible for her not to feel the kind- 
ness in his voice. It touched her, and gave her 
a momentary, phantasmal feeling that there was 
something in this man after all that was not 
thoroughly disagreeable; a feeling that she could 
hardly have analyzed, though it forced tears into 
her eyes, and made her little, low laugh sound as 
if there were a sob in it as she echoed his “ Happy ? 


164 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


I do not know that I shall ever be happy again, 
Dr. Lovell — it all seems like a dream to me — and — 
I am weak yet, you see,” she ended with a quiver- 
ing voice. 

I wish I could do something for you,” he said 
softly, the yearning to help and comfort her grow- 
ing in him painfully. 

“ Miss Clarie, are you there ? ” said a feeble little 
voice from the bed. 

Clarie started. She had forgotten all about 
Jem ; she had forgotten that it was getting late, 
and that she had been idling away a good half- 
hour with her sworn enemy ; and the sworn enemy 
had forgotten it too! How long Jem had been 
awake they could not imagine, but both started 
consciously and bent over the child. He had his 
flowers spread out before him, his thin, white 
fingers touching and selecting them tenderly. 

“ And how is my little patient to-night ? ” asked 
the doctor, bending down to look at the large, 
eager eyes lifted to his. 

“ Better. She brought me them flowers — aint 
they stunners? Show them to him. Miss Clarie, 
please; they’re all for me. You’re both so good,” 
turning his head languidly. 

Clarie put her arm under the child’s shoulders, 
lifting him gently and putting a cool pillow under 


CLARIE CHANGES HER MIND. 


165 


his head, the doctor looking on approvingly. 

There were so few women who could do such a 
thing well,” he commented inwardly. 

“He is really better?” she asked, with a con- 
scious feeling that her question must seem a hollow 
device to the doctor. 

“ Oh, yes ; ” in a low voice. It is only weak- 
ness we have to combat now, the fever is broken.” 

And then Clarie took up her basket, bent over 
Jem to say good-night and that she really must go 
now. To her surprise Dr. Lovell followed her to 
the door. 

“ There is no necessity for my remaining,” he ex- 
plained. “ The six o’clock bells are ringing, and 
Debby will be here very soon. Ah ! there she is 
now, coming along the lane. How that brother 
and sister love each other. There is something 
fiercely maternal in that girl’s nature — a sort of 
thing you’d expect to see in a lioness guarding her 
young. It is all a mistake. Miss Gallatin, to think 
that love must have a certain intellectual tinge to 
make soul-fellowship perfect. Sometimes we find 
it enclosed in the thickest husks of ignorance — 
just the purest, most tender love in the world. It 
is a rare bit of sunshine k) me when I do find it, as 
I have here. Miss Gallatin.” 

“Yes, Debby’s is a strong nature. Mr. Chantel- 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


1 66 

ling calls her heroic — I do not know. He argues 
that all mankind are equal — I suppose, taken from 
a certain elevation they may be — and it does seem 
hard that true family love can only be found among 
the cultivated. Those are subtleties I don’t un- 
derstand, Dr. Lovell, but Miss Clem is forever 
quarreling with the rector about it.” 

“ I like Mr. Chantelling. I think I never knew 
a man that I liked better.” 

He spoke warmly, and he could not fail to see 
the sudden glow of color which lit Clarie’s face as 
he spoke. ‘‘ Miss Clem is right,” he thought with 
a pang; ‘‘she loves the, rector. I might have 
known how it would be.” But he stopped to 
shake hands with Debby, and give a few directions 
about Jem’s medicine, with not a sign of perturba- 
tion on his dark, earnest face, and then walked 
silently along by Clarie’s side down to the bridge. 
There they paused a moment to look and listen. 
The purple clouds were shut out from sight by the 
rocks and hills that had grown gray and sharp in 
the gathering twilight ; but on either side of the 
bridge there was a green, golden vista of trees and 
shrubs, opening before them like a pathway into 
some beautiful enchanted land. Down in the 
water, dark and still, the cows were standing 
solemnly, waiting to be driven home ; and all 


CLARIE CHANGES HER MIND. 


167 


about, against the dark, green background, plumes 
of late golden-rod were nodding and shining, with 
white spires of daisies and meadow blooms inter- 
laced, and the lights and shadows flickered to and 
fro, the leaves stirring softly with a rhythmic 
rustle in the wind. The air was delicious, the 
sense of peace profound. 

This is a perfect pastoral — an idyl,” said the 
young physician, watching with deepening interest 
the sudden light in Clarie’s eyes, the sudden flush 
of color on her cheek. 

‘‘Yes; wasn’t it Madame de Sevigne who first 
called the autumnal days crystalline f It was such 
a perfect idea. I always think of it, and I love a 
late, gorgeous October better than any month in 
the year. There is room for body and soul to 
reach out and breathe on such a day as this. I 
used to wonder why you could come to a little 
out-of-the-way country town and bury yourself, 
but I don’t wonder any longer ; it is like having a 
little piece of a world all to yourself — your own 
separate landscape ; and the best of it is, nobody 
can take it away from you. I think you were wise 
to escape a town. Dr. Lovell.” 

“ I think I was very wise,” he said simply. 

They were under the tall trees and close to the 
home gate before Dr. Lovell spoke again. 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


1 68 

Won’t you let me come in and see you some 
evening, Miss Gallatin ? ” he asked. I want to 
come as a friend. Will you shake hands with me 
to-night and forget that we have ever been — any- 
thing but friends ? ” he added. 

Clarice lifted her eyes slowly to his as she placed 
her white fingers in his strong, broad palm. 

“I would like very much to be your friend,” 
she said quietly. “ I am sorry — sorry that I ever 
thought of you in any other way.” 

“Confession is good for the soul, Clarie Gal- 
latin,” she commented inwardly as she paced slow- 
ly up the garden path. “ I hope Esculapius will 
feel better now. I certainly do.” 


CHAPTER XIII. 


QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 

T'^OCTOR LOVELL walked straight across 
the street, through the rectory gate, and 
into the library, with the air of a privileged friend. 
Miss Clem had taken Alice for a drive in her low 
phaeton, with the fat, gray pony, — that looked like 
an overgrown, asthmatic Maltese cat, and just 
about as frisky, — and the rector sat alone in his 
library. He was poring near-sightedly over a ser- 
mon, with a book of reference open before him ; 
but Doctor Lovell made no apology for interrupt- 
ing him, indeed he did not hesitate to say, without 
any preliminaries, “ Do put away .your pen for a 
moment, my dear fellow ; I must have a little quiet 
chat with you this evening, and for once I want the 
pleasure of disturbing you. I feel like having a 
gossip ; that’s a woman’s mission, I believe, but 
then it is about a woman,” going directly to the 
point, in his usual way. 

The rector closed his book, wiped his pen care- 
fully, smoothed out the loose sheets upon which 
he had been scribbling, and leaned back in his 
8 (169) 


I/O 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


chair with a smile and a nod, as much as to say, 
“ I am a victim ; proceed.” 

“ In the first place,” the young doctor went on, 
balancing himself on the arm of a chair, and look- 
ing. directly down upon his friend with that affec- 
tionate, elder-brother sort of air that was now quite 
common to see, “ I want to thrust my confidence 
upon you, and, in the second place, I want to de- 
mand yours. I have a kind of confession to make 
— you don’t object to the confessional, do you ? I 
— I half believe I am in love, only it sounds so 
very sentimental to say so, and I feel anything but 
sentimental over it. It has been growing steadily 
ever since I came to Briarly, ever since the first 
evening I spent with her. It is an honest, manly 
love, of which I am not ashamed ; but I want to 
see my way clearly before I go any farther, and I 
want to be certain that I am not interfering with 
you.” 

The Reverend Harcourt flushed crimson even to 
his delicate forehead, and Doctor Lovell saw it in 
an instant. 

“ I am not sure,” he faltered ; I am not sure 
that she can tolerate me as a friend. I think the 
whole family have felt in some mysterious way that 
I was the cause, directly or indirectly, of their 
father’s death.” 


QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 


171 


“You are speaking of Miss Gallatin?” said the 
rector faintly, his whole soul hanging on the doc- 
tor’s answer. 

The young man looked down at him keenly. “ I 
have thought that perhaps you cared for her your- 
self — don’t think that I am intruding upon your 
privacy— but it was your own sister led me to think 
of it, and, tell me the truth. Chantelling — I think 
you must feel I have a right to ask this of you.” 

“ I did not think Clem would have guessed — I 
did not know that there was a soul on earth who 
could read my heart thus,” and then the rector 
bowed his face upon his hands for a brief moment. 

It had been a hard question to ask of a man who 
loves the same woman, but Mr. Chantelling did not 
hesitate to answer it. He lifted his head and laid 
his feminine hand in the strong, outstretched palm 
of his friend. 

“ Lovell, I do love her with my whole heart. I 
have loved her all my life, but she does not know 
it, and she shall never know it now. I have given 
myself to God and His Church. I shall be content. 
Win her and wear her if you can.” 

The doctor looked down with a grave smile. 
“You are as tender as a woman. Chantelling, and 
— and almost as heroic.” 

But it wasn’t a heroic figure dr face, and the rec- 


1/2 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


tor, in his well-worn, carefully brushed study-coat, 
looked like anything on earth but a martyr. “ And,” 
he began again, “ that is not quite all I want to 
say. When a man like you loves truly and hon- 
estly, I think it is something more than a mere 
sentiment or emotion — it exalts it to the grandest, 
highest thing of which a man is capable, and nothing 
should lead to its sacrifice — not even the friendship 
which we in common hold sacred, and which now, 
whether you win or lose, I never can do without. 
God bless you and her too. I who love her can 
say it ! ” Then, after a minute’s pause, he looked 
up with a half smile, “ And now, Lovell, I think I 
shall have to finish my sermon.” 

At the very same time Miss Clem and Alice were 
jogging along the country road. Miss Clem, as usual, 
■propounding questions and Alice answering. This 
time her catechism was an entirely new one. For 
the first ten minutes she paid attention to nothing 
but the pony. That interesting quadruped was not 
unlike his mistress in the two qualities of age and 
eccentricity. Infantile to a degree under certain 
conditions, he was decidedly opposed to anything 
but a funereal pace when first taken from the stable. 
It had become her settled habit to devote the first 
part of her drive to remonstrance on this evil trait, 
accentuating her remarks with delicate touches of 


QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 


173 


the whip, and it was just as much the settled habit 
of the pony to pay no attention to the thing until 
his mistress paused from sheer exhaustion • then he 
pricked up his ears, rolled one eye back at her, and 
ambled off at a fine pace, which he resolutely kept 
up until he reached home again. Crotchety as a 
woman,’’ Dr. Gallatin used to say, when Miss Clem 
complained. “You’ve taught him all he ever knew, 
and it is too late to make a fuss about it now.” 
Alice thought of it as they dragged slowly along 
by the river bank. It did seem as if the two had 
grown up together and imbibed each other’s opin- 
ions ; certainly Miss Clem liked her own ’way as 
well as the pony liked his. By and by, when he 
took up his little obliging trot, the exhausted 
woman dropped the reins in her lap, leaned back, 
took a long breath, and began : 

“ It is so tiresome, Alice, and he is just like a 
woman, as your poor dear papa used to say. And 
just when I’ve been dying to get you off by myself 
and have such a long talk, where nobody can put in 
a w’ord, and we can just settle it all in our own 
way, and I do think so much of your judgment, 
Alice.” 

“ Oh, Miss Clem ! ” and Alice blushed like a rose. 
“ If you wanted advice you had much better have 
asked May.’* 


174 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


‘‘ I ask whom I choose,” said Miss Clem, with her 
vivacious little air of generalship, and I think 
more of your opinion about it, Alice, than of any 
one else in the world.” 

“You are so good,” murmured the young girl. 
“ I don’t deserve it at all, but I will try and an- 
swer you as judiciously as I can.” 

It is only this,” and Miss Clem adjusted her 
reins and then looked Alice full in the face. “ It is 
about Harcourt and his getting married.” 

“ Mr. Chantelling ! oh, I hope not ! ’’ cried Alice ; 
but she did not blush this time. “ Miss Clem, I 
think, unless he really loves her very, very much — 
that is — I mean he is very much nicer as he is.” 

“ Loves her ! of whom are you talking, child ? 
That is just why I am finding fault. He don’t love 
anybody, and he won’t, and yet Mrs. Abury and 
Mrs. Lewis, and indeed the whole parish, are de- 
termined he shall be married.” 

“ That settles it at once,” said Alice ; “ but who 
is the young lady, pray?” 

“ Ah ! now you embarrass me, my dear. There 
are so many to choose from in a parish like St. 
Michael’s.” 

“ And the parish would always be saying she was 
the very one whom he ought not to have chosen, 
though she should prove to be a saint. I think, if I 


QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 1/5 

were a clergyman, I should go at least a thousand 
miles away and take an entire stranger.” 

“ Oh, Alice ! ” said Miss Clem in a hurt voice, 
with a little strangle of a sob in it. I did think, 
you would care ! ” 

“And I think I am caring,” answered Alice 
promptly. “ It would be a positive calamity to the 
Gallatin household to have the rector marry. We 
want him all to ourselves ever and ever so much 
longer. It would beggar us beyond description, 
dear Miss Clem — but for you — oh ! I do think a 
nice sister-in-law would be the very thing you 
would like ! ” 

Miss Clem groaned. “ If /could choose her,” she 
said solemnly. “ If I could choose her ; but I 
know Harcourt would laugh in my face at the bare 
proposition, and as for the parish, why, it would 
think she should be selected by a standing com- 
mittee.” 

Alice laughed a little quiet laugh, but Miss Clem 
went on with a good deal of dignity. “There is 
very little to laugh about, my dear ; at least you 
would think so, if you were one of the parties 
concerned.” 

“ I do not think I should care.” 

“ Of course you would not at first ; but you don’t 
know what a parish is. Old Mrs. Brewerton’s cen- 


176 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


tennial prize yeast is nothing to it. Mrs. Abury 
goes, around in her carriage and calls here and 
there, and looks wise, and nods her flowers, and 
sighs over the folly of the world, and says : ‘ The 
poor dear rector, and that poor superannuated Miss 
Clem ! ’ Oh ! yes ; you need not shake your head ; 
that is what they all say of me; but you must not 
think I care, my love. I never pay the slightest 
attention to it. If I had married, you know, it 
would be quite- a different thing. It is just because 
I never happened to wear that wedding-dress. 
Dear ! dear ! what trifles go to make up our lives, 
to be sure ! And then Mr. Lewis, who has two 
marriageable daughters, says, ^ The church wants 
building up, and if Mr. Chantelling had the right 
kind of wife, we wouldn’t know St. Michael’s in 
two years.’ I am sure we wouldn’t if Jane Lewis 
sat in the rector’s pew. Why, Alice, my love, just 
take fifty hungry cats, and shut them all in one 
little room, and then let loose one rat among them 
— I don’t care how big or fine a rat it may be when 
he goes in, there wouldn’t be a scrap left of him in 
five minutes to tell the tale.” 

^ And Mr. Chantelling is the rat?” said Alice. 

A very fine one,” no'dding oracularly ; and he’s 
going to be eaten up as sure as fate. Mrs. Abury 
and Mrs. Lewis are quite determined about it.” 


QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. 


177 


Well,” said Alice, “it is a poor battledore and 
shuttlecock sort of existence in any case. I don’t 
see ^hy there should be such a fight for it. Tossed 
about from one to the other — up at the top of the 
parish favor, or down on the ground in the twink- 
ling of an eye — to be everybody’s cheerful drudge, 
and never desire any reward beyond the satisfac- 
tion of having done her own duty and other peo- 
ple’s too. Let Jane Lewis have it. Miss Clem, 
dear, if you can stand it.” 

“ Stand it ? I don’t propose to do anything of 
the kind, .child ! Jane Lewis indeed ! And pray 
what do you think Harcourt would say?” And 
Miss Clem violated all established rules by giving 
the pony what he was pleased to consider a very 
vicious cut with the whip. It took a minute or 
two to restore that placid animal’s equanimity, dur- 
ing which Miss Clem thought bitterly how she had 
gone to work, and with her own hands demolished 
the castle she had been all the summer building. 
What had possessed her to tell Alice what a miser- 
able lot it was to be the wife of a clergyman ? She 
might better have wasted her breath upon Jane 
Lewis. But Miss Clem was an undaunted com- 
mander-in-chief. If she had failed in strategy, she 
would boldly come forward and sketch out her 
campaign openly. 

8 * 


178 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


My dear Alice,” she began, of all people in 
the world I think you are the one most qualified 
to be a clergyman’s wife.” 

'‘Me?” and Alice looked up with a puzzled air 
of surprise. “ Oh, no. Miss Clem ; in the first place, 
I know no clergyman.” 

“Except Harcourt,” Miss Clem interpolated 
eagerly. 

“Yes; and he is just like a dear, dear brother, 
you know. I don’t believe any other clergyman 
could be half so good. And then I shall never 
marry. I have quite made up my mind:” 

“Never marry? Oh!” burst out Miss Clem, 
“ don’t say that. Just look at me 1 ” 

“ That is just what I have been doing all my life, 
and I see the dearest, sweetest, best — ” 

Tears rushed to the old lady’s eyes. “ Don’t 
say it, my love — don’t, don’t ! Why should you 
who are so young, and with life all before you, de- 
liberately choose to be alone ? ” 

“ But I shall not be alone. There will always be 
May, and perhaps Clarie. I don’t believe we shall 
any of us want to marry, even if any one asked us. 
We’d all have to go together in a body, and take 
the annex, with you and Mr. Chantelling in it be- 
sides — I don’t want him to marry. I wish that we 
could always stay just as we are.” 


QUESTIONS AND A NS WEES. 


179 


“Alice!” said Miss Clem, with as much of a 
tragic air as she could command, “with all your 
sweetness and common-sense, are you just going 
to bury yourself in that school, and in household 
drudgery for life ? Shall you never weary of it or 
repine ? And I know — I know you had dreams.” 

“Yes, I have had my dreams,” the color creeping 
into her fair cheeks ; “ dreams that I was going to 
be a great woman, and carve out a name and posi- 
tion for myself. I awoke from that pretty quickly, 
dear Miss Clem ; but I never, neve: in my wildest 
flights of fancy, dreamed of being a clergyman’s 
wife.” 

Miss Clem gave a long^ sigh. “ Perhaps you 
might do worse than be an old maid,” she said, 
pensively. “ I saw the gentleman whom I ex- 
pected once to marry, years and years after, when 
Harcourt and I were on a little trip to Niagara. 
He had his wife and two daughters with him, and 
he had grown bald, and oh ! so stout ; and he 
tapped his cane on the floor when he spoke to his 
wife, and called her ‘Jemima’ in such a way that 
I am sure if it had been me I should have tinted 
dead away on the spot. It has always seemed 
to me that three little raps with a cane meant 
‘Jemima’ ever since. Well, I never was sorry 
that I put away my wedding-dress instead of 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


i8o 

wearing it ! Such a pretty dress ! all piped and 
corded/* 

And Alice said, “Yes, dear,** and patted the soft 
old hand that held the loose reins, and then silence, 
as sweet and perfect as the twilight, settled upon 
them both. 

They were crossing the long bridge, and Alice 
leaned over the phaeton side and looked down at 
the still, calm river without saying a word. There 
was a little skiff with two figures in it, a boy and a 
girl. He had idly dropped his oars, and she was 
trailing one hand in the water and singing a little 
song. It floated up to her through the soft, dewy 
air, and made it seem even more peaceful and 
beautiful with this touch of sentiment to brighten 
it. On the bridge two boys were swinging bare 
legs over the stream, as they counted up the fish 
they had caught that afternoon. Miss Clem drew 
rein to speak to them, and Alice saw, with dreamy 
eyes, how a little flock of sparrows flew before 
them, then came back again and settled over some- 
thing, quarrelling, chattering, and scolding among 
themselves. By and by, one bigger and stronger 
than the others carried it away. It was nothing 
but a worm. She smiled softly to herself when she 
thought of the words, “ Are ye not of more value 
than many sparrows?" Why should she not be 


QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. l8l 

content with her lot? The birds were fed — how 
or. why she did not know; but God cared for 
• them tenderly, and so He would always care for 
her. It was such a lovely world — so full of peace 
and beauty — and it seemed such a good place for 
everybody, of course it would be for her. She re- 
membered once reading that each one carves out 
his life for himself, and God blessed the patient 
hands that toiled to chisel out the way; but it was 
sweeter, far sweeter, to think that the hand of the 
great High-Priest himself had fashioned the temple 
and then stooped to call it His own. With a 
smile Alice accepted her lot. It might not be 
what she herself would have chosen ; but if God 
cared for and remembered her, she was willing to 
give up her little dreams and be led by Him. How 
could Miss Clem think her life would be lonely? 
Alice was sure, sure it never could be. 

Miss Clem was very silent too, as they drove 
slowly up the broad street under the dark trees. 

Jane Lewis, indeed ! ” she said to herself as she 
deposited Alice at her own door. “ If Alice won’t 
have him, nobody else shall. I’ll keep him myself! 
we shall see what the parish will say to that ! ” 


CHAPTER XIV. 


MISS CLEM RELIEVES HER MIND. 

T he girls were all sitting together in the 
empty school-room, folding their hands and 
resting with that luxury of repose that is so per- 
fect, and only to be appreciated after a day of toil, 
when Miss Clem burst in upon them. She bore a 
bowl of cream, with a Dover egg-beater in it, hold- 
ing it aloft as if it were a sort of chalice, and she 
passing through some form of invocation, though 
in fact she had only run over to whisk up a dish 
of syllabub for little Jem Goswald ; but then Miss 
Clem’s methods were always after a manner in- 
spirational. Her cheeks were a little more flushed 
than usual, and her eyes were quite bright as she 
drew an arm-chair close to Alice, spread a napkin 
over her black dress, and began to spatter her 
cream and ideas simultaneously. 

“ Such nonsense is taught in schools nowadays, 
my dears,” she said, nodding all round with that 
sweeping generalization peculiar to her. I really 
couldn’t stand it any longer, to hear Harcourt, a 

(182) 


MISS CLEM RELIE VES HER MIND. 1 83 


sober-minded clergyman, and Dr. Lovell, talking 
the rankest infidelity. Oh ! you needn’t smile ; I 
assure you it is quite true. There’s all sorts and 
kinds of infidelity. Some believe in too much, 
and others in too little. The idea of one whisking 
around at the rate of nineteen miles a second ! It 
makes my head spin to think of it. And if it’s 
really true, I don’t wonder there’s so many giddy, 
light-headed people in the world. Just think of it, 
my dears— eleven hundred miles a minute! You 
know I never heard of such things when I was 
young ; why, I was taught in school : 

“ ‘ The earth is round, and like a ball, 

Seems swinging in the air.’ 

And now it’s an oblate spheroid, and I don’t know 
what more besides. I suppose it has an axis yet — 
one can’t tell, though. And what’s all this talk 
about Saturn losing his ring? Why, I’ve never 
lost mine that my sainted mother gave me the day 
I was sixteen, and why should Saturn go about 
losing his, and making a point of losing it, too, 
every fifteen years ; and where does he go to pick 
it up again. I’d like to know? It’s clear shiftless- 
ness, that’s what it is ; and I wanted to ask, May 
dear, if you were going to teach such nonsense in 
your nice little orderly school ? ” 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


184 

May smiled and said, “ Dear Miss Clem, Alice 
has -obliged me so very much in taking the astron- 
omy class in hand ; she knows far more than I 
about it, and it was always one of her favorite 
studies. You know papa was very careful about 
her reading.” 

Then,” said Miss Clem, vigorously plying her 
egg-beater, “ Alice, you will please tell me all 
about it. Does Saturn really lose his ring and find 
it again every fifteen years?” 

“ I believe he does. Miss Clem,” Alice replied 
demurely. 

Then I am not only extremely disappointed in 
Saturn, but in you,” and Miss Clem’s tones deep- 
ened to a little severity. “ I grieve to repeat, in 
you, Alice, too. I have very little interest, I am 
free to confess, in Saturn, but I have so much in 
you — so very much in you — and you have disap- 
pointed me in more ways than one lately.” 

“ I am so sorry,” and Alice put out her hand 
softly, with a sort of touching appeal in it, and 
laid it on Miss Clem’s sleeve ; but the old lady, for 
once in her life, was slow to notice it. 

“You know,” she went on, “how bitterly I 
grieved over your decision the day we took that 
long ride. That hurt me more than anything that 
has happened in years.” And Miss Clem flourished 


MISS CLEM EEL/EVES HER MIND. 1 85 


the egg-beater wildly, and got more froth on her 
nose and limp curls than in her bowl, and then 
she handed it over suddenly to Clarie, and said. 

There ! finish it, do ; and eat it if you like. I don’t 
care what you do with it. I never could make it 
decently ! ” 

Clarie laughed, stirred the cream gently, and said 
soothingly, Miss Clem, dear, I wouldn’t do any- 
thing that made me tired and nervous. Just sit 
still and rest, and then we’ll eat the cream if you 
say so.” 

‘‘But I promised Doctor Lovell Jem should 
have it for his tea, and I’m going to drive over in 
the phaeton. Clarie, if you’ll finish it, I’ll take you 
along, indeed I will ; only I don’t want any more 
nonsense to-night ; I am quite upset now.” 

There was silence for a moment, only broken by 
the sound of Clarie’s energetic work, and then 
Alice said, “ Won’t you please tell me. Miss Clem, 
what you meant? I can not imagine what de- 
cision you referred to. I try to please you in 
everything, and I am so grieved to have caused 
you any annoyance.” 

“ Oh, Alice ! and I put all my heart into it too ! 
and you 'Wouldrit — you know you said you couldn't 
— be a minister’s wife.” 

“ Has old Mr. Pophauser offered hia heart and 


l86 THE OTHER HOUSE. 

hand to our sister Alice?’' cried Clarie, dropping 
the egg-beater. 

“Old Mr. Pophauser! What are you all talking 
about ? ” questioned May, looking first from one to 
the other. 

“ I certainly was not referring to Mr. Pophauser,” 
said Miss Clem with stately gravity. “He would 
scarcely be thinking of a wife now in his declining 
years ; besides, he has had the melancholy pleasure 
of burying three. One might have a surfeit of 
even wives, I should think ; and then, he has had 
one foot in the grave for the last two years.” 

“Yes, but I thought he might pull it out again,” 
argued Clarie. “-People have been known to do 
such things before — that is — widowers.” 

“I was. not talking of widowers,” and Miss 
Clem’s cheeks flushed. “ I can not understand or 
be understood to-day. I was sorry Alice did not 
feel like marrying a young man and a clergyman.” 

“ But who has invited her ? ” persisted Clarie. 

“ It wasn’t an invitation ; it was a supposition.” 

“ Oh, I don’t care what you call it. I want to 
know the name of my future brother-in-law.” 

Alice blushed crimson. “ I don’t know what it 
means,”* she faltered. “ Nobody has ever asked 
me to marry. I never thought of such a thing. 
And, dear Miss Clem, I don’t want to talk of pos- 


MISS CL^M RELIE VES HER MIND. 1 8 / 


sibilities until they at least assume the shape of 
probabilities.” 

“ But depend upon it, Alice dear, nobody will 
ever ask you if you steadfastly retain the opinions 
you expressed to me the other day. There isn’t a 
man in the country but would face the cannon’s 
mouth sooner than ‘ No ’ from a pretty girl. Why, 
there’s the doctor now ; don’t you think him 
clever, and intellectual, and all that sort of thing, 
Clarie ? ” 

■ ‘‘ I suppose so,” granted Clarie ; but not to that 

severe degree that one need feel overpowered by 
his presence or opinions.” 

“Well, you ought to hear the things he says to 
Harcourt, and — oh ! I grieve to say it — the things 
that Harcourt says to him. They are not always 
talking as they were to-day, about the earth’s 
motion, the planets, perpetual occultation or the 
aberration of light. Intellect would seem to me 
a good substitute for light, but then I never pre- 
tend to understand. But T know very well when 
they are talking, about ladies and marriage what 
they both think, though I will confess, listen all I 
may, I never am quite able to make out who it is 
they are talking about. And Doctor Lovell, 
though he is so strong, seems to be frightened to 
death at the idea of a woman rejecting him. And 


i88 


THE OTHER HOUSE, 


there is Harcourt — in some way he has become 
irhbued with that monkish idea that most young 
clergymen of the present day drift into, of giving 
up all earthly love, devoting himself to the Church 
and to celibacy. Just as if God would love him 
any better because he hadn’t a wife, and every- 
thing comfortable. And I’m afraid Doctor Lovell 
is one of the same sort. I heard him talking to 
Harcourt one day when they thought I was out 
of hearing; and the way Harcourt spoke about 
giving her up and she never knowing it, just set my 
teeth on edge. I declare, I believe they have a 
secret between them, and, whatever it may be, it 
makes them the dearest friends in the world. 
They are like two women together, but they are 
neither of them happy ; and I am sure, quite sure, 
you have all noticed how miserable my poor 
brother has been looking lately,” pausing to take 
breath and glance reproachfully at Alice. 

Yes, the girls had noticed the worn look which 
of late had deepened on the rector’s face. Miss 
Clem had steadily exerted herself to efface it ; but 
still it was there. The Rev. Harcourt had some 
mental anxiety, and Dr. Lovell shared it. There 
was a touch of fine sympathy between them, and 
the two men understood each other thoroughly. 


MISS CLEM RELIE VES HER MIND. 


189 


Women would have talked it over; these two 
pressed each other’s hands and were silent. 

It is a hard way. Perhaps it isn’t though — for a 
man. 

It was only the other day, Clarie remembered, 
that she put her hand upon the rector’s arm and 
asked abruptly, “ Have you any trouble?” looking 
full into as much of his eyes as could be seen be- 
hind the mist of glasses ; “ and I wish when I ask 
one of my direct questions, you’d take those 
things off.” 

The grave, delicate face, almost too delicate for 
a man, was turned toward her, and she had noticed 
the flush that swept over it, and how the head was 
averted uneasily. Yet he answered her, ‘‘I am 
only a man — a weak, ungrateful one — or I would 
never confess I had a trouble ; but hold ourselves 
in check as strongly as we may sometimes, we 
want, we long for, things it may not be right for 
us to have.” 

I wish I could say something to comfort you,” 
she said, wistfully. And then he held out his 
hand, clasped hers gratefully, and went away. 

That was quite all, and yet Clarie remembered 
it, listening to Miss Clem’s fragmentary talk, with 
a half pang in her heart that the rector, in a hope- 


190 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


less sort of way, must love some one else besides 
the one whom she had dedicated to him yearS ago. 
Miss Clem was still vibrating between love and as- 
tronomy, anxiety for Harcourt and displeasure 
with her pet Alice ; but her words conveyed only 
a slight sense of amusement to Clarie, who was 
floating miles away from them all in an idle and 
speculative dream, which she scarcely dared define, 
except in the vaguest possible manner to herself. 
Dr. Lovell had changed them all. Even the rector 
now — was it any wonder that she found it hard to 
be his friend ? — and yet she had promised, and had 
given her hand to seal that promise, only an even- 
ing or two before. 

“ I wish Dr. Lovell and the rector were both — ” 
She looked up at May, caught her eye, and some- 
thing that she saw there checked the words that 
hung on her lips. 

“ I was going to say — that is — I wasn’t going to 
say a thing — ” hastily rising and looking out of 
the window. “ What a glorious evening it is going 
to be for a ride. The cream is done ; and quite 
perfect, isn’t it? Now let us go and take our 
drive, and see how Jem will like it. It is rather 
ungrateful though, Miss Clem, not to give us a lit- 
tle taste all round.” 

“ Hush ! ” cried May, what noise is that ? ” 


MISS CLEM RELIEVES HER MIND. I I9I 


She walked to the window and threw it open. 
There was a clamor of distant voices, and then a 
bell began to toll. It was a quiet, peaceful village, 
and the rapid, resolute clang of the bell was an un- 
usual sound to hear. 

“ It is a fire ! ” gasped Miss Clem. ** If I had 
needed anything to finish me completely, after this 
most- trying day, nothing more effective than a fire 
could have been selected. I only hope it is not 
the church.” 

They all ran up-stairs to look out of the front 
windows, and Miss Clem heaved a sigh of exquisite 
relief when she saw the square gray tower of St. 
Michael’s, unharmed by fire, sharply defined against 
the sky. But was that a mist rising over the trees 
on the other side of the river? Surely no mist 
ever hung so still and concentrated over one spot. 
Presently a dark cloud of smoke rose and covered 
the mist like a pall, then a dull, red flame leaped 
in the air like a vast torch flaring in the wind. 

‘‘ It is over the river, by the bridge, close to the 
mill. Debby’s cottage perhaps ; and, oh ! poor 
little Jem! ” they all cried together, and then Miss 
Clem caught up her shawl. 

“ Let the cream go, Claric,” she called out. . 
“ That will keep, but we must drive straight down 
to Debby’s. If it’s a fire, we shall have our hands 
full with little Jem.” 


CHAPTER XV. 


FIRE ! 

W HEN Debby Goswald sat down to her 
loom in the dull gray of an autumn morn- 
ing, it was with a weary sort of questioning that 
her heart had been a stranger to ever since that 
night when Mr. Chantelling had preached to her. 
She worked mechanically, as one who is pursued 
by pain — a pain that threatened to pierce her soul 
should she pause to think. When the noon bells 
rang and she went home to Jem, she had not been 
able to eat any dinner, though the poor child, weak 
still from the effects of fever, placed silently before 
her the tempting jelly which May Gallatin’s house- 
wifely hands had moulded for him. She loathed 
the dainty food, and, now that she was back at her 
spools again, with the smell of oil and wool, and 
the whir of wheels above her head, she was begin- 
ning to feel sick and faint with something else be- 
sides hunger. 

Debby was passing through a new experience — 
an experience of which she had never dreamed. 

She was not yet what people perhaps would call a 
(192) 


FIRE I 


193 


Christian, nor was she a mere worldling or scoffer, 
as she had been before ; but she was ignorant in 
the Christian life, and without the knowledge that 
there is an ignorance which is the first stage of 
wisdom. For one blissful moment she had known 
what it was to plant her feet upon the heights ; but 
she did not dream that there were depths to which 
she must descend and traverse before she could 
begin the patient, slow climbing again. She stood 
just where myriads of men and women, as weak 
and ignorant as she, stood when Christ came down 
to save them. And she was seeking this Nazarehe 
very much as the woman of Canaan did who came 
out of the coasts more than eighteen hundred 
years ago, vaguely wondering if He would hearken 
to her prayer, and crying, “Have mercy upon me. 
Thou Son of David.” Many a troubled soul since 
that day has asked the same question, waiting for 
the hand of the great Healer to touch them and 
say again the words, “ Be it unto thee even as thou 
wilt.” 

Debby was waiting for the same touch ; turning 
her sightless eyes toward Him, yet feeling through 
it all that the darkness was never more intense 
than now. Her soul had been starved so long! 
She wanted so much, and she knew absolutely 
nothing. She had never been certain about any- 
9 


194 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


thing, except the mill and things there. Heaven, 
when the rector had talked to her of it, -seemed' like 
a fairy tale to a child — something very beautiful, 
but very far off ; and his conclusions she could not 
accept until she had made them her own by expe- 
rience. 

“ I was so happy,” she thought, passionately. 
“ I had asked God again and again to ^how me my 
work, and I thought He had shown it to me.” 

For the first time since she had known Jem 
would get well, tears rushed into her eyes and rolled 
between her fingers unheeded. The old loathing 
of herself came back to her to-day. Life seemed 
to be a sort of wrong done her, instead of a blessed, 
immortal gift.* Her very growth and' enjoyment 
of all that was good and beautiful made her see 
how poor her chances had been, and what a blank 
the wheel of fortune had thrown out to her. She 
began to look back over her dwarfed infancy, the 
heavy years of grinding poverty, the slow, constant 
longings, and the just as slow constant pain. There 
was no hope that it would ever end. It was God, 
God himself, who had placed in her soul this fierce 
thirst for beauty, and then given her a frame ‘dis- 
torted and blasted — a life utterly purposeless and 
lonely. That was God’s work, not man’s; and 
could she expect man to be more merciful than 


FIRE! 


195 


He? — her whole soul starting up in a mad cry of 
rage against this injustice, this maiming of her life. 

Debby had never been a favorite in the mill. 
She felt^by instinct how even the finer nature of 
the coarse beings around her revolted at her de- 
■ formity, perhaps even when their words were kind- 
est. Her silent, morbid ways told against her too ; 
and yet, if they could have looked beneath that 
surface, they would ‘have found a wild, passionate 
craving for love and sympathy, a*^heart full of he- 
roic unselfishness, which she wasted with lavish 
prodigality upon the only human being who be- 
longed to her in the world — the little freckled-faced 
bobbin-boy, Jem. 

As th'e afternoon waned and deepened, her head 
ached, and a sense of oppression overcame her. 
Then a numbness followed the sharp pain — the 
roused intellect became dull again. There hung 
about the place a heavy, unclean odor, that made 
her head ache, and the chatter and laugh of the 
girls grated harshly on her ears. Sometimes her 
hand dropped by her side, and it seemed to her 
she would suffocate. 

It’s awful warm here to-day. Tears to me I 
nevei suffered more them hot days in summer,” re- 
marked Deb’s neighbor, a quiet, black-haired girl, 
glancing up quickly at the white face, and then 


196 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


bending her eyes upon her work again, for Deb 
had only nodded assent. She was quite incapable 
of speaking, and ached from exhaustion with so 
many weary hours at the spools. 

Two or three girls stopped to chat in a pause of 
work, and she caught herself listening. One was 
exhibiting, with much pride, a gayly-braided jacket. 

There’s going to be a little dance to-night over 
to Jinny’s — ^just a dozen or so— you’d best come.” 

Nothing to wear,” replied the owner of a stuff 
gown that looked poor enough by the side of the 
smart jacket. 

“Oh, n^ver mind the clothes. We’ll have fun 
just the same. You’ll come, won’t you ? ” 

“ No, I won’t,” turning away. 

“You’re so stingy! I don’t see any sense in 
hoarding Up your wages.” 

“ I don’t hoard them up. I have to support my 
sick mother and help clothe the children ; and it’s 
precious little goes in finery for me. I don’t care 
though — I don’t want to go to your dances anyway.” 

Two or three pairs of hands were stretched out 
to pull her back, and then there was a little scorn- 
ful laugh. 

“You’ve never been since the parson started his 
school. I reckon you’re going to turn pious too, 
like Deb here.” 


FIRE/ 197 

“ I won’t come,” said the girl, shortly. 

And Debby, -who felt their eyes turning upon 
her now, bent over her work, pressing her lips 
closely together. She knew very well none of them 
would ask her. Why, sh& had never danced a step 
in her life, not even as a child. It was rather late 
in the day for her to begin. 

Awful hot ! ” said one of the girls again, fan- 
ning herself with her handkerchief. “ I can’t 
breathe. What upon earth is the matter? I don’t 
see what should make such a smoke, girls.” 

It’s near night. Time to quit work. You’ve 
been horrid slow to-day. Jinny. I’ve helped you 
lots, you know I have.” 

So they worked and talked inside the loom room, 
while outside, just below the staircase, a still small 
voice was trying to make itself heard. It began 
with the softest whisper — ^just a flutter of a sound 
— then it died away, and everything was still again. 
But it could not rest. It kept on fluttering and 
whispering, and by and by it darted out a long, 
fiery tongue, and tried a sharp, sibilant hiss ; but 
no one heard. The planks began to crackle and 
start, and the cry, as of a dumb spirit in pain, grew 
louder, clearer, fiercer. Then it broke loose, made 
a sudden spring, writhing and twisting like a baleful 
fiery serpent about the old stairs. Again and again 


198 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 

it leaped high ; then a huge volume of smoke rolled 
up and filled the space above. The whisper 'had 
become a cry, the cry a roar of something more 
terrible than the steady click' of machinery above ; 
and still the men and women worked on. The one 
with a braided jacket, fanning herself by Deb’s side, 
was the first to comprehend it. 

I say there is somiething the matter, girls,” her 
face blanching a little. “Look at all that smoke. 
Run, run, for your lives ! the mill is on fire ! ” star- 
ing around with dazed eyes, and then wringing her 
hands as she flew down the narrow space between 
the looms. 

In an instant there was a knot of women at the 
door fiercely fighting to be the first out ; but they 
drew back, looking down into a black gulf in place 
of a landing. One man knelt down, groping with 
his hand as far as he could reach. He grasped the 
wooden rail, though he could not see it. In an- 
other moment he had twisted his handkerchief 
about his face and disappeared. Some of the 
bobbin-boys and girls followed him ; others drew 
back, blackened,- half blind, and staggered to the 
windows, leaping out to certain death Each one 
was fighting for life, inch by inch ; each only 
thought of self Fire had shut them in a prison, 
and death, it seemed, alone could be the jailor to 


FIRE I 


199 


set them free. There were wild cries of “Try the 
windows ! Jump ! Don’t let’s die here like rats in 
a hole ! Listen ! listen ! there’ll be help coming 
soon,” for through the open casements came the 
steady chime of bells, all the bells in the village 
clanging fiercely together, the rattle of engines, the 
shrieks and hoarse shouts of those who were helping 
outside. It had seemed only a second since the 
room had been instinct with work and life, and now 
there was nothing but the broken throb of the ma- 
chinery and the sobs of two helpless girls. The 
little one in the stuff gown, who had to hand her 
hard earnings over to her sick mother and the chil- 
dren, came and sat down by Deb’s side, and for a 
while they said' nothing. 

“ It is horrible ! ” she whispered at length with 
a low, shuddering cry. “ Do you think it means 
death?” 

“ I think it does for me,” said Debby, mechanic- 
ally. “You might try the window. I — I’m not 
like you.” 

“ No, poor soul ! ” and she broke out crying. 
“ If we could only tie our skirts together, and niake 
a rope — it isn’t so high from the windows — but it 
would kill us if we fell. Kitty jumped. I stood 
right by and saw her ; but she lay so stjll, just where 
she fell. I don’t dare try that.” 


200 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


She went to the window, then came back, tear- 
ing off her woolen skirt. “ Help me,’' she said, her 
teeth chattering, her fingers trembling, “ help me 
tear it in strips ! I’ll fasten it to the window and 
drop down. You can come too, after me.” 

In the first horror of surprise Debby had remain- 
ed rooted to the spot as if she were stone ; now she 
bent herself to the task of helping save this girl, 
perhaps afterward herself. 

But when the red flame, flashing into a glory of 
crimson, burst through and rioted among the ribs 
and rafters o'f the low-ceiled room, there was noth- 
ing there but the dying, panting life of the looms, 
and one crouching, hunchbacked girl. She was lean- 
ing from the window struggling for breath ; but she 
did not look down now on the sea of faces below 
her. She had watched the frail woolen rope part 
the moment the weight of the girl had tested it. 
It dangled idly from the sill ; once her hand touch- 
ed it, but she drew back shuddering, thinking, with a 
slow, dumb horror, that this was the last look she 
would ever take from that window. How strange 
it would be to shut her eyes and never see the 
world, or Jem — poor little Jem — again. 

Have you never had rare moments when a sud- 
den light flashed over your brain, and you saw 
clearly, in one fleeting instant, wjiat it has taken 


FIRE! 


201 


years and years to imprint and leave behind as a 
memory? People who have been saved from 
drowning can tell all about it ; how through all the 
agony of such a death the memories of a lifetime 
leap before the closing eyes. In that one brief pang 
of waiting to be delivered, Debby lived over all the 
years gone before : the slow tides of pain gather- 
ing and surging against her soul ; but in her wait- 
ing the brain of the girl became clearer, striving, it 
might be, to shake off whatever dull weight had 
been placed there by birth, poverty, or even chance. 
The problems of life ceased to be bitter to her as 
she went down into the valley of the shadow. She 
had put out her hands blindly in the dark, and she 
had felt a Hand clasping hers, close and strong; a 
warm, loving Hand, it seemed to her now, not that 
of the shadowy Helper of which she had only vague, 
indefinite ideas before. Quiet, rest, and sleep, they 
were coming’ to her. Already she felt the peace 
stealing over her ; it wakened something in Deb’s 
tired heart deeper even than the thought of the 
child she was leaving. Her poverty, her sore needs, 
the trials and discipline of life, Jem and his weak- 
ness, the great Peace held them all. And then a 
softer light crept into her eyes. A prayer rose to 
her lips. She dropped her head upon her clasped 
hands. 


9 


202 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


Our Father who art in Heaven.” 

But she could not fii\ish it. She was thinking 
of Jem. ‘‘Take care of Jem,” she whispered in a 
hushed, awed voice. “ Oh, take care of Jem ! ” 
Over and over it rose to her lips mechanically, 
but the sound of it brought a strange sense of com- 
fort to her. In another moment a man stood in 
the open casement, reeled toward her, and caught 
her in his arms ; the thick coils of smoke were 
blinding, but his touch roused her. She repeated 
drowsily, “Take care of Jem,” felt herself lifted, 
and knew nothing more until she found herself on 
the ground and people surrounding her. 

Miss Clem and Clarie had watched it all from a 
safe distance ; they had driven rapidly to the 
bridge, saw the great mill wrapped in sheets of 
flame, and then both, with one impulse, thought 
of Jem. It took but a moment to drive to the 
cottage, but Jem was not there. With the first 
alarm the frightened child had feebly dragged him- 
self to the scene of the catastrophe ; one wild 
thought giving him strength. He must find Deb. 
It was Mr. Chantelling who took the little fellow in 
his arms and made him promise not to stir until he 
brought his sister to his side. The rector’s face was 
blanched as the child’s, but it was not with fear. 
When the people below saw the girl standing 


FIRE I 


203 


alone at the mill window they set up wild shouts 
of “Save her! ” “Where’s a ladder?” “Who will 
go?” But no one offered, and the crowd. surged 
back like a disorderly army pausing for a leader, 
while above the’ crackling of the flames rose the 
sobs and clamor of women. 

“ My girl’s missing ! ” 

“ I had three on ’em at the spools 1 ” 

And then, as the smoke parted and curled, the 
woman, circled in by flame, flung up her hands 
with a wild, uncertain cry, and disappeared. 

“ Deb ! ” wailed little Jem. “ It is Deb I ” 

Mr. Chantelling at this moment pushed his way 
through the crowd. The men were placing a lad- 
der against the wall. Some one was to go up, and 
a roar of voices mingled with the rush of the 
flames. Cries of warning and encouragement rose 
on every side. And Miss Clem and Clarie, still 
gazing, saw a slight, clerical figure dash up the lad- 
der. It paused a moment, neared the window, 
then the smoke hid it from sight. 

Poor old Miss Clem buried her face in her hands 
and sobbed like a child ; but Clarie sat erect, look- 
ing with dry, bright eyes at the point where the 
figure had disappeared. Whatever latent strength 
there was in her unformed, childish nature, lifted her 
at that moment into unnatural heights of courage. 
“ I wish I could help him ! ” she thought with a 


204 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


swelling heart. “ I knew he was brave and true — 
braver than them all — but I did not dream he 
would dare do this ! ” 

Oh, Miss Clem,” she cried, “ I am so proud — 
so proud of him too ! ” And, like the contradiction 
that she was, she burst into a sudden passionate 
flood of tears. 

It seemed an eternity of time before he appeared 
again ; then he bore a drooping, helpless burden 
in his arms, stepping slowly and* painfully on each 
round, never daring to look down at the sea of 
white, wondering faces turned upward to him. 

“ Hurrah ! he’s saved her ! ” 

It’s the rector — bless his soul ! braver than any 
on us, though he looks so little and woman-like ! ” 

“ She’s dead ! No, fainted.” 

“ He can’t go farther. Steady the ladder! Don’t 
you see he’s going to fall ? 

He was blackened, scorched, disfigured, even in 
that brief fight with the flames ; but he called out 
with a clear voice, Some of you take her; I can’t 
bring her any farther.” 

Instantly a dozen men ran forward. He was 
within ten or fifteen feet of the groun.d. Some 
one ran up, caught the girl, shouted to him to keep 
up good heart ; but there was nothing to break 
the rector’s fall. The ladder swayed and he fell 
heavily forward, with his face upon the ground. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


A NIGHT WATCH. 


1 AOCTOR LOVELL had come promptly to 
the relief of the sufferers the moment that 
he heard of the disaster. It was he who lifted the 
rector when he fell from the ladder, hastily making 
a bed of a pile of coats and blankets and laying 
him carefully upon it, the excited crowd surging 
about him, everybody longing to do something, 
and everybody wanting to talk too ; to show their 
sympathy and respect, and to assure Miss Clem of 
it, as she knelt in agony by her brother’s side, deaf 
to all the tumult and confusion about her. 

The rector’s face and hands were bruised with 
the fall and blackened with smoke ; and, though he 
looked around as if he were quite conscious of all 
that was passing, his eyes closed wearily. 

Clarie watched the doctor in his hurried exam- 
ination, then asked breathlessly, “ What .can be 
done ? Is he very much hurt ? Is it the fall or the 
burns ? ” 

'‘The fall was nothing, but lifting that woman 
from the window was a great weight for so slight a 

(205) 


2o6 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


man to sustain, and he is exhausted physically. I 
would advise you and Miss Clem to hurry to» the 
rectory. I can bring him home much more care- 
fully than any one.” 

So they took him up ; the two women driving 
home in the phaeton more silently than they had 
come, leaving May standing a little apart, with 
Jem Goswald holding to her dress, begging her not 
to leave him until Debby would wake up and know 
him again. May longed to follow her sister, but 
she promised Jem she would stay, and then watch- 
ed the two carriages until both were out of sight 
before she could go back to her work of caring for 
the injured. 

Doctor Lovell carried the rector up to the room 
above the library, and then sat down to watch him ; 
not alone, for Miss Clem would not leave his side^ 
for any pretext whatever, nor would she let Clarie. 

There was a fire on the open hearth, the curtains 
^were drawn, and a shaded lamp burned softly on a 
table back of the bed. The room was preternatu- 
rally quiet ; and even Miss Clem’s canary, hanging 
in the window in a gilded cage, seemed to under- 
stand that something unusual was going on, for it 
suffered its nightly self-decapitation some hours in 
advance of the regular time, and now was simply a 
corn-colored cotton ball on a perch. 


A NIGHT WATCH. 


207 


The doctor settled himself in a large arm-chair 
and fell to watching the leaping flames, scarcely 
stirring lest he should waken his sleeping friend. 
When a faint motion or a restless moan broke the 
stillness, he rose and went to the bedside ; but 
there was very little that he could do, after the 
burns were dressed. What the rector most needed 
he was having — quiet and rest. The painful ex- 
citement of the day had been too much for a natu- 
rally delicate and highly sensitive nervous organiza- 
tion, and though Doctor Lovell apprehended no 
serious consequences, he would be greatly pros- 
trated for a time. This he whispered to Clarice as 
she came and knelt down on the hearth-rug before 
the blaze, looking up inquiringly into his face. 

I am so glad to have you here,” she said, nerv- 
ously. You will not go away again to-night ? ” 

“ Not unless I am called. I left word •at the 
office where I should be.” 

“ You are tired. Doctor Lovell,” she began again 
after a moment’s silence. '^You have been very 
busy among the poor creatures who were hurt.” 

“Yes, it is a wonder there were no more killed. 
There are several^hat will never see morning, and 
more than half of them are bruised or have broken 
limbs. It is the most astonishing thing that people 
will jump from a third or fourth story window. 


208 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


Miss Gallatin, there is scarcely a poor house in this 
village that has not trouble and sorrow in <it to- 
night/'* 

God help them, poor souls! " she said, her eyes 
misty with feeling. I wanted to do something, 
but everybody was ready to help, and May was 
there. Oh, Doctor Lovell, she is so good and 
gentle, and she knows just what is needed at such 
times ; she can do everything much better than 
I can, so I was ready to come away with Miss 
Clem, and now there seems to be nothing to do 
here." 

‘‘Nothing but to watch and wait. Rest and per- 
fect quiet are the best medicines our friend can 
have." 

So it happened that it was Clarice who watched 
that first night with Miss Clem and the doctor. It 
was a strange, new experience to her. Toward 
midnight the rector became quieter. He muttered 
less and less, until his voice died away altogether, 
and he sank into profound slumber. But Doctor 
Lovell held to his post unflinchingly. The only 
rest that he would give himself was in the arm- 
chair before the fire, and once or twice he lost him- 
self in a doze, undisturbed by the tapping of the 
boughs against the window-panes or the soft sough 
of the wind outsjde. Then, with that curious cog- 


A NIGHT WATCH. 


209 


nizance of detail which a mind tense with anxiety 
sometimes possesses, his thoughts wandered away 
to far-off scenes, and he imagined how loudly the 
sea must be roaring over the sands of home. He 
pictured the high rocky coast, the long line of 
breakers rolling in with steady chime, and remem- 
bered how one night, years ago, when he was a boy, 
a vessel drifted in upon the rocks and went down 
with every soul on board. How rhany strong men 
those cruel waves had borne down and hidden 
from sight forever, and how like the sea, just as 
cruel and devouring, was this life surging and beat- 
ing around him. He thought of the death-beds by 
which he had already stood, and he so young, and 
now he was watching perhaps by another ; and, 
how strange it should be, that this man was his 
friend, and that both loved the same woman. That 
might be something for him to bear in this world. 
The sea might sweep up to his very feet, and he be 
left standing upon the sands — waiting — biding his 
time, taking life as God sent it to him, not as he 
would have planned it out for himself. It couldn’t 
be a fairy story or a poem to everybody ; it might 
be at some stages, to a woman ; but he had his to 
live, whether he came out scarred and seamed with 
battle or not. What matter ; the scars did not 
show, they could be covered up, aye, he might 


210 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


himself, after a time, learn to lay his hand upon 
those very scars without a 'shiver of pain. , 

The fire flashed fitfully on the hearth. Watching 
the flame and idly revolving one thought, then 
another, his tired eyes closed and he fell into 
slumber. 

Clarie watched by the rector’s bed as the dark 
hours slipped into gray, feeling, in all the plenitude 
of her youth and strength, no need of rest herself. 
She made Miss Clem lie down upon the sofa in the 
next, room, promising to call her if anything were 
needed. She walked from the bed to the window, 
restlessly looking out and wondering when it would 
be dawn ; and once she paused softly by the arm- 
chair, and looked down at the face of the sleeping 
physician. The fire-light shone on his close curled 
head and dark, handsome face, the somewhat stern 
character of his beauty softened by the helplessness 
of sleep, and she caught herself wondering why it 
was that these two men — so like, yet^ so unlike — 
should be such close friends. Dr. Lovell was so 
manly and strong, and the rector was — she could 
not say weak after yesterday’s trial — but there had 
always been something feminine about him until 
yesterday. And then she thought, with a glow of 
pride, “ He may be tender and gentle as a woman, 
but he has the heart of a lion. I did not know how 


A NIGHT WATCH. 


2II 


strong and brave he was. Dear old Miss Clem, it 
is no wonder she is so proud and fond of him. I 
am proud and fond of him, too.” 

At last through the window she saw a faint gray- 
light, and, as she extinguished the lamp and drew 
back the curtain, the sky showed long waving 
strips of golden red, fluttering and deepening in 
the east, with drifts of purplish clouds floating 
over the cool pearly gray. She went in softly and 
wakened Miss Clem as she had promised, and then 
Dr. Lovell roused himself and came up to the 
window where Clarie was standing, and together 
they watched the breaking of the morning. 

I have not seen a sunrise for years before,” she 
confessed in a whisper, leaning her head against 
the window with a long sigh. 

It has been cruel to let you have the morning 
watch alone,” he said. It is the hardest part of 
the night always, this dull, waiting for the dawn. 
You are very tired. Miss Gallatin.” 

No,” she answered, without looking up. 

But that weary sigh ? ” 

“ There was no reason in it. There never is any 
reason for the things that I do.” 

Dr. Lovell said nothing, simply because he did 
not know how to enter a disclaimer, so they stood 
in silence while the dawn widened slowly into day 


212 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


about them. And much to her surprise two great 
tears crept into her eyes as she stood there. 

I think — perhaps — dear Miss Clem, I may be a 
little tired,” she ventured to say. “I will run 
home very softly now and come back again after 
breakfast ; and. Dr. Lovell, will you come over and 
take breakfast with us ? ” 

“ He will stay with me,” interposed Miss Clem 
in a little whisper ; and oh, Clarie ! do have Alice 
come over at once. I certainly can not be left 
alone a moment.” 

The doctor still stood at the window and watched 
the slight girlish figure crossing the street, and he 
was still standing there, gazing at the house across 
the way, when the first flood of sunlight burst into 
the room, and Mr. Chantelling awoke from his 
sleep to a full recognition of all around him. But 
his prostration was so entire that for the moment 
he had no power to speak, and could only look up 
at his sister quite helplessly. 

To Miss Clem the dear, pale face never seemed 
more beautiful as the golden glow transfigured it. 
She bent over and touched his forehead with her lips. 

“ Harcourt,” she said, the tears dimming her 
eyes, Harcourt, dear, do you know me? ” 

He nodded, smiled, put his hand in hers, and 
dropped asleep again. 


A NIGHT WATCH. 


213 


He slept in this way for some time, until Alice 
came in, and she and Miss Clem went down-stairs 
to see about breakfast together. The sound of 
the closing door roused him. He opened his eyes, 
stretched out his hand for the doctor’s, held it a 
moment with a troubled sort of questioning in his 
gaze ; the next instant the question put itself in 
words, “ Who was here a moment ago ? ” 

“ One of the Miss Gallatins.” 

Which one ? ” 

“ Miss Alice.” 

He looked disappointed, turned his head wearily 
on the pillow, and waited as if to gain strength. 

Has she been here all the time? ” 

“ No ; Miss Clarie watched last night.” 

“ May was not here at all ? ” he whispered half 
sadly. 

“ We left her with Debby Goswald. She came 
down to the mill soon after the news spread 
through the village, and she worked there among 
the poor women as hard as any one in Briarly. 
She stood by me and saw you come down the lad- 
der with Debby in your arms.” 

The rector was visibly agitated. 

“God bless her! God bless her! ” he said again 
and again. Then, after a pause, “Where is she 
now?” 


214 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


“ I left her at one of the mill cottages. There 
was a little bobbin-boy that jumped from one of 
the windows. He was badly crushed, and he could 
not live longer than morning. She held him while 
I did all that could be done to ease his pain. I 
never saw more nerve. And the child clung to 
her as if he thought she could save him, and the 
mother sat by her side sobbing and shivering and 
not able, to do a thing. I did not wonder, poor 
soul ! But how Miss Gallatin quieted her ! She 
said she would stay until I came again, for I told 
her I should not leave you. Chantelling.” 

The rector smiled, pressed his friend’s hand, and 
closed his eyes in sleep again. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


A NEW OUTLOOK. 

\ UTUMN was growing old, but it was dying 
royally, and- deepening in color as it died ; a 
ripe, warm, full death, as if nature were wasteful of 
her infinite strength in uttering this glowing pro- 
test against inevitable decay. The red berries 
dropped from the barberry-trees, and heavy drifts 
of leaves lay thick on the window-sills. But through 
all the warm-scented blaze of color, hints of coming 
winter began to be heard ; faint whispers of storm 
brooded among the restless boughs, though the 
winds still loved to dally and linger, holding in their 
embrace the sensuous glow of all the unforgotten 
summer days. 

It had been an anxious time in the village. 
Doctor Lovell had plenty of work to do, both day 
and night, for there was scarcely a mill-hand that 
had escaped injury of some sort. Debby Goswald 
had been very ill from nervous prostration, and 
Jem too had suffered a relapse. The girl with the 

braided jacket had put on another robe, and now 

‘ (215) 


2I6 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


her hands were folded in an idleness of which she 
had no knowledge before; and Jinny and Kitty 
were both sleeping the same long sleep. 

At the rectory the time had passed monotonous- 
ly. The rector himself was not seriously ill, but he 
had suffered much from exhaustion, and it took 
him a long time to recuperate. When he walked 
about the room it was feebly, with staggering, un- 
certain steps, like a child, and his improvement was 
slower than had been anticipated. Miss Clem lost 
appetite • and grew sharp-faced and pale with re- 
peated watching and anxiety. She would not give 
iip her place to the Gallatin girls, though it was 
noticeable that when Alice came she relented the 
severity of her watch, and refreshed herself with 
folding her hands and taking a nap on the chintz 
lounge in the room adjoining. 

Every day, and sometimes twice a day. Doctor 
Lovell came ; not for a professional visit as much 
as to have the long, quiet, brotherly talk, which 
was now an apparent necessity with both. He 
often met the young ladies from across the way, 
but never since that one burst of confidence had 
, the rector spoken of his love for Clarie and its utter 
hopelessness. But it seemed strange, and hard to 
reconcile with the Reverend Harcourt s decision, 
that of the three ladies Clarice was the one oftenest 


A NEW OUTLOOK. 


217 


found by his side. Between these two there seemed 
to be a perfect understanding, but an entire absence 
of anything like sentiment. And in all this every- 
day meeting Doctor Lovell too had come to know 
her very well. Of course it was not quite com- 
fortable for him to meet her so often in his visits 
to the rectory ; it was riot quite comfortable to sit 
by in apparent stoicism and listen to them as they 
made plans about the mission school, and the 
music, and what should be done when the rector 
was well enough to take up his burdens again. He 
repulsed and shut it out, but it came back to him 
with a pertinacity that would not be put aside. 
Sometimes he looked upon himself with wonder 
that he could continue to have this man for his 
dearest friend. Would it be so if the Reverend 
Harcourt changed his mind and married Clarie ? 
he wondered. Would his own friendship, strong as 
he thought it now, be able to bear that test ? His 
whole soul shrank from such a possibility, and for 
the first time he began to dread meeting the young 
girl. It was an altogether different sensation from 
anything he had ever experienced before. It was 
not so much a desire to be away from her as a 
fierce pain and conviction that it was wrong for him 
to meet her daily, and so forge and rivet his own 
chains more closely. There was but one thing for 


10 


2i8 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


him to do, and that, in justice to his friend, he 
could do at once. He must stay away. The 
simple decision set his heart beating as it had 
never beaten before. But he did not change his 
mind. The rector did not really need his services 
any longer. There were many sick people in 
Briarly, and a physician is always implicitly believed 
if he pleads professional engagements. It was hard 
— hard for him. Meeting her daily in the pleasant 
unconventional life that the two families had 
adopted, it had been natural that he ‘should have 
drifted into something more than the position of 
mere ordinary friend and physician. And Clarie 
was not quite the same either. She had put aside 
her proud, cold, half-offended ways, and gave the 
doctor a sort of timid respect and shy friendliness 
that opened his heart to her more and more. Never 
had her society been so sweet as in that week or 
two of watching and caring for the rector in his in- 
validism. Never had he realized more completely 
how true and noble a nature was hers. And now to 
give it all up, and for the rector — a man who had 
said distinctly that he should never marry — “ he had 
the Church — he should always have the Church.’' 

He took off his hat to be cooler, though it was a 
chill evening in autumn, and walked home under 


A NEW OUTLOOK, 


219 


the dry trees, his head throbbing and aching with 
thought. 

The next day he called at the rectory at an hour 
when he knew Clarie would be engaged. It was a 
hurried professional visit, in ^^hich he scarcely 
trusted himself to look into his friend’s eyes, fear- 
ful lest he should read the determination that was 
lurking there. He felt like a culprit, a Judas, when 
Miss Clem prattled innocently of his great kindness 
and her brother’s affection for him, and he hurried- 
ly pleaded an engagement ; indeed, he might not 
be in again for several days — he had two severe 
cases in hand — the rector could send for him should 
he be needed. So, in spite of his effort to make it 
otherwise, it assumed the appearance of a sort of 
farewell between them, in which both Doctor Lov- 
ell and the Reverend Harcourt were faintly con- 
scious that an impalpable something was rising up 
as a barrier between them. Both were sensitive, 
both were hurt ; and the doctor went away to at- 
tend to his severe cases, with anything but a com- 
fortable feeling in his heart. 

Of course this state of things could not last. 
When three days had passed Doctor Lovell pre- 
sented himself suddenly in his friend’s room again. 
He found him on a lounge, looking pale and worn ; 


220 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


but his face brightened visibly as he held out both 
hands in welcome. 

“ I think my illness has enfeebled my mind as 
well as my body, Lovell,” he began. “Now tell 
me at once why you have stayed away.” 

“ I have not been so busy since I came to Briarly,” 
and the doctor dropped into a chair and took his 
friend's hand in his own, with a glad, happy thrill 
in his heart, as if he had lost something very, very 
dear and found it again quite unexpectedly ; but 
he avoided a direct look into the Reverend Har- 
court’s eyes, which were full of eager questioning. 

“ The fact is. Chantelling, I have been a little 
overworked lately. That sounds silly for a man 
with my physique to say, I suppose ; but my prac- 
tice is extending rapidly, and I am afraid I don’t 
go about the thing coolly enough. One makes a 
great mistake in using up so much nerve power 
when one is young. If one only could be cold- 
blooded, you know.” 

'‘Yes, I know,” said the rector; “don’t talk 
against time, Lovell — let us understand each other 
at once — don’t let anything mar our friendship now. 
What has kept you away from me for three whole 
days ? ” and his eyes, mild as they certainly were, 
had a look in them that was more of command than 
pleading. 


A NEW OUTLOOK. 


221 


The doctor started, then flushed. 

I — I couldn’t come,” he faltered ; and then the 
desire to unbosom himself suddenly became too 
strong for repression. I don’t believe you can 
ever understand what it has been to meet her here 
every day by your side ; to hear her talk — to con- 
sult you, to make plans with you for your future 
work, in which I could have no share. My business 
was simply professional. To cure you — for her!” 
he ended quite bitterly. I was ashamed of my- 
self, too. I was ashamed to call myself your friend. 
Yet I found out that I had a nature I could not 
change. I have tried my utmost to put her out of 
my heart, but I love Clarie Gallatin as well now as 
when I first told you of it. There ! That is my 
full confession. Chantelling.” 

Clarie ? ” said the rector, a strange, bewildered 
look creeping over his face. Clarie Gallatin ? 
I have made a mistake, I fear ; ” but there was 
that in his face that threw a flood of light upon 
Doctor Lovell’s mind, and he answered in a low 
voice, that trembled in spite of his eflbrt to over- 
come it : 

“ My friend, my dear friend, did you think I 
meant Miss Gallatin — May ? ” 

You said Miss Gallatin,” said the rector simply. 

“ So I did ; I remember. I always spoke of her 


222 


THE OTHER HOUSE, 


as Miss Gallatin,” was his agitated reply. “Oh, 
how miserably you have misunderstood me, all 
along! And you — you have loved her?” 

“ All my life.” 

“And you never spoke?” 

“ How could I? And how could I lose what -I 
had never dared ask for? I had no right to stand 
in your way.” 

“ But why did you not speak ? ” 

“ I have had my dreams,” confessed the rector 
sadly. “ I had my theories too. One was of a life 
wholly dedicated to God and His Church, as I had 
hoped mine was dedicated. Oh, Lovell, I didn^t 
want an earthly love to intrude. I wanted to give 
it all to Him. It is a thing that pleases young men 
when they first dip into theology. It seemed to 
me heroic and noble to thus consecrate a life, but 
after a time it looked pitiful and small when I 
thought how little God. cared for such sacrifices ; 
and then I outgrew my delusion ; but it was too 
late. She never cared for me, except in a quiet, 
brotherly way. Then you came ; well, that ended 
it.” 

“ But it is not ended ! ” cried Doctor Lovell, im- 
petuously. “ If you love her, win her, and crown 
your life with the chrism of a holy and enduring 
love.” 


A NEW OUTLOOK. 


223 


I think it is too late,” said the rector. Now, 
Lovell, let me hear your story ; but ” — passing his 
hand over his brow — “ I am afraid I am a little con- 
fused ; you will have to begin all over again.” 

“ Yes,” answered the doctor, “ that is just what I 
am going to do. And when I have come to the 
end I will tell you the whole story, if you choose to 
hear it then.” 

And he took up his hat, bent down over the 
rector, and said, Chantelling, if -you were a 
woman I should kiss you good-night.” 

And so he went out. 


CHAPTER XVIIL 

IN THEIR HEARTS. 

M ay and Miss Clem were sewing and chatting 
together in the library window, when Doc- 
tor Lovell ran down the stairs and passed out at 
the front door. A moment after, Mr. Chantelling 
came feebly into the room. He drew up an easy- 
chair between the two ladies, laid his head upon 
the cushioned back, and closed his eyes with a 
smile of content upon his face that was quite un- 
usual to see. 

“ I think Doctor Lovell has grown very neglect- 
ful of you, Harcourt,” began Miss Clem ; “ very 
neglectful indeed ! He has not been near you for 
three whole days, and, now that he has come, only 
gives you five minutes’ attention.” 

“Ten minutes, dear Miss Clem,” corrected May, 
looking up at the clock and smiling. 

“Well, ten minutes then. May, my love, you 
have grown so precise since you opened that 
school. I can’t say that I exactly like it ; and, oh ! 
(224) 


IN THEIR HEARTS. 


225 


I am sure,” shaking her curls dubiously, ^‘that I 
shall never be reconciled to that school.” 

Nor shall I, May,” interpolated the rector with- 
out opening his eyes. “ I have been thinking it all 
over, and I want to forbid another term. I wonder 
if you would be quite content to give it up if I 
asked you ? ” 

May looked up surprised. There was something 
in the Reverend Harcourt’s voice that she could 
not quite understand. 

But why should you ask me to give it up now, 
Mr. Chantelling, when you gave it your unqualified 
approval only two or three months ago ? Nothing 
has changed since then.” 

I think I have changed myself. May,” said the 
rector softly, and then he opened his eyes, took off 
his glasses, as he usually did when anything 
troubled or puzzled him, dropped them on his knee, 
and leaned his head back again. 

“ Of all extraordinary men, certainly Harcourt is 
the most extraordinary ! ” argued old Miss Clem in- 
wardly ; one can never count upon the thing he is 
going to do. A clergyman, a man with staid, self- 
controlled habits, and yet as full of surprises as a 
juggler ! Of course he intends asking for Alice, 
and it is only right May should be the first one 
consulted ; she, poor thing, being the head of the 
10* 


226 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


family, now that the doctor is gone. But of all 
times to seek for her, this certainly strikes me as 
the most inconvenient, when he has had hundreds, 
yes, positively hundreds, of the loveliest chances in 
the world. • There was that time when May asked 
his advice about starting the school. I as good as 
told him then to do it. Now, there’s the family 
mending on hand, and ever so many dozens of nap- 
kins that I wanted May to mark. But that is the 
way with a man. And, oh dear ! I know he doesn’t 
want me in the room when he takes off his glasses 
and looks as if he’d speak if I were not here.” 

These thoughts flashed through her mind like 
lightning in a summer sky. She gathered the piles 
of snowy linen in her arms, half-inclined to resent 
the Reverend Harcourt’s tardiness, and stay now 
in spite of him ; but love for her pet Alice over- 
came all her scruples. 

I declare ! Doctor Lovell is going across the 
street into the house. May,” peeping through the 
window blinds. Pray, what can he be wanting 
there? Do you think anyone is sick? I have a 
great mind to go over, Harcourt.” 

“ No one is sick,” said May, turning her eyes in- 
quiringly upon the rector. “ Did he tell you what 
he was going over for ? ” 

To see Clarie, I believe.” 


IN THEIR HEARTS. 


227 


“ She is alone, painting in the drawing-room to- 
day.” 

“And where is Alice, pray ? ” inquired Miss Clem. 

“Alice went to see Debby this morning.” 

“ Alice should be here,” said the discontented 
schemer sternly. “ It is Alice’s place to be here.” 

But she gathered together her piles of linen, 
giving no heed to May’s surprised inquiry as 
to her hurrying away, and went up to her own 
room, dropping into her little rocker with a long 
sigh of relief. “ The worst of being an old maid is 
that one can’t find her proper sphere,” she rumi- 
nated. “ One never knows when one is wanted. I 
feel just like Mohammed’s coffin sometimes; but 
if Harcourt will only speak now I shall not care. I 
will stay in my own room and be content to rock in 
this window-seat all the days of my life. But oh ! 
Alice, why couldn’t you have been here, so he 
could have said it to you first ? It has taken him 
so long to make up his mind ; though, to be sure, 
it is ‘ better late than never,’ as we used to write in 
our copy-books. Dear me ! what a funny thing life 
is ; but I am persuaded that Harcourt is going to 
speak now.” And Miss Clerri shook her bottle of 
indelible ink and marked the napkins herself, with 
unusually frisky tails to the gs, out of the very ex- 
uberance of her joy. 


228 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


Meantime the Reverend Harcourt spoke. 

May had risen to go, when Miss Clem vanished. 

I think Clarie would like me to come back,” she 
began ; but the rector put out his hand and 
touched her arm. 

‘‘ Don’t go,” he said ; “ don’t leave me with my- 
self! Come to me. May.” 

She looked up, their eyes met, and in that in- 
stant she comprehended that they stood closer to 
each other than they had ever stood before ; his, 
full of earnest questioning, met the soul that looked 
out of hers, pure and true as his own. But she did 
not come to him. She stood, looking down at 
him, longing to say something of that which lay at 
her heart, struggling for utterance, and yet not 
daring to frame it into speech. He saw the great 
embarrassment in her face, and gathered both her 
hands in his. 

‘‘There have been times,” he began, in a 
smothered voice, “when I thought you belonged 
to me. I needed you then. May, just as I need 
you now, but I dared not offer you a divided heart. 
I wanted it all for God and His Church, never 
dreaming that I could serve Him and love Him 
better if you shared my work with me. There was 
one time — but it was years ago — you can not re- 
member, child, as I can — but I longed to ask you 


IN THEIR HEARTS. 


229 


then. My heart was torn in twain between duty 
and love, and duty won the day.” 

I remember,” said May softly, and if there were 
any lingering pain in her heart at the memory, she 
kept it down for his sake. 

“You remember?” a flush of surprise crossing 
his' face. “ Oh, May ! will it be too late ? I need 
you now even more than I did then. I can be 
nothing without you. Come to me. May.” 

She came to him and put her hand in his. 

“ Can you love me now ? ” he said, still looking 
in her eyes. 

“Yes, I love you ; I have loved you all my life; 
and now I do not think I have anything more to 
wish for in this world.” 

There was no embarrassment in her manner as 
she made this simple avowal ; her face was calm 
and full of a sweet, subtile happiness, and her eyes 
looked far away, as if already seeing the joy the 
years would bring to her. 

He gathered her in his arms and put his lips to 
hers. Then he said, “ May, will you go with me 
and help me tell Clem?” 

And across the street Clarie was sitting alone 
with Doctor Lovell. He had come in as if it were 
quite his usual custom, although both he and 


230 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


Clarie were sensitively alive to the fact that this 
was the first time he had entered the house since 
Doctor Gallatin’s death. 

The room was very still, the fire on the hearth 
burned low and clear, striking out and glorifying 
everything it touched, even to the warm, deep 
tints of the old crimson furniture ; and Clarie, sit- 
ting in its vivid glow, with folded hands and 
dreamy eyes, looked a pretty domestic priestess — 
a very Penates— in the young physician’s eyes. 
She had been drawing, making a little sketch for 
one of her pupils to copy; but the healthful flame 
had kindled such sweet memories in her heart that 
she pushed it aside and leaned back in her chair to 
dream. All the hard, dusty path that she had 
traveled for the past six months was blotted out, 
and an easy, broad road lay stretching, white and 
sunny, before her. The quiet house seemed to- 
night the same old home again, full of love and 
content ; the dear presence that had once filled it 
was there, and the eyes, full of love, looking down 
into hers ; aye, she could almost feel the touch of 
the familiar fingers on her head. It was a foolish 
trick of hers, and Clarie knew it, this idle dreaming 
over that which could never come again, this des- 
perate clutching for an uncertain hope, trying to 
build up a future happiness out of a present pain. 


IN THEIR HEARTS. 


231 


And yet she loved her little dreams. She could 
not live without them. She knew the next hour, 
the next moment perhaps, she would waken and 
take up those little burdens that seemed hard and 
impossible for her to bear; but while the dream 
lasted it was so beautiful to drift back into that life 
to which she had said farewell forever — how could 
she resist it ? 

It was Doctor Lovell who roused her, and 
brought her to every-day things again. He came 
gravely and quietly into the room, holding out his 
hand with his usual self-control, but he sat down 
by her side with something like timidity. 

“ I hope I am not intruding upon your solitude,” 
he began, with a savage delight in his heart that he 
had her all to himself for the first time in his life, 
and it was his own fault now if he could not make 
himself understood. ‘‘You know you gave me 
permission to come and see you some day.” 

Clarie murmured some indistinct words of polite- 
ness ; but she had come out of her dream with re- 
luctance, and it gave her a sort of pre-occupied, 
grave air that did not suit Doctor Lovell in the 
least. If you know a man’s nature you can easily 
comprehend the reason. Anything, even positive 
indifference, is preferable to calm courtesy ; and 
this impassioned quiet said plainer than words that 


232 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


he was nothing to her. He was not quite prepared 
to say the thing that trembled on his lips, and for 
a moment it hung there unsaid, while his thoughts 
took rapid flight. When he sat down by her side 
his impulse had been to pour the whole truth out 
on the spot ; but, by some mental intuition, he felt 
she was ready to oppose him, and the beginning 
was not easy. And Clarie herself felt a sudden, 
tremulous fear that lent for a moment power and 
perception to her ; and when Doctor Lovell spoke, 
his voice vibrated through her painfully, leaving 
a sudden tension of every faculty she possessed. 

‘‘Is this the only welcome you can give me?” 
he asked after this little, breathless, fragmentary ' 
pause, which seemed to give all the more emphasis 
to his words, and caused Clarie to lift her head, 
looking at him with cheeks alternately white and 
crimson, stammering something about not under- 
standing him. 

The most foolish speech that she could have 
made of course ; but how was Clarie to know that 
the thing above all others he most desired was the 
very privilege of explanation she now gave him ? 

He bent toward her with a sudden, rapid move- 
ment, indicative at once of impulsive, but absolute 
self-surrender. “ If you will only listen, and let 
me tell you what my coming here and knowing 


IN THEIR HEARTS. 


233 


you has been to me, perhaps you can understand, 
he began eagerly. It has opened a new life to 
- me. ]£verything is different ; the very earth itself. 
There is a new meaning and a new light upon the 
whole world. There has been ever since that 
night when you promised to be my friend. But I 
am not satisfied with friendship now. I want you 
to give me more than that. After all these days 
and weeks of silent learning of each other’s hearts, 
can you give me nothing deeper — tenderer? ” 

‘^You — you are very generous,” she said, with a 
sense of having received all that he was capable of 
giving, and speaking softly in spite of herself. 

Do you know I think you have been helping 
raise my faith in mankind since I have known you 
• so well. I hardly thought such disinterested ” — she 
hesitated a moment — “friendship could be found 
in this world.” 

“But I am not disinterested,” he interrupted, 
looking straight into her eyes. “ I told you I 
wanted something more than friendship ; but the 
last thing I would do is to weary or importune 
you. If you could give me no hope, I should ask 
you to tell me at once, so that I might — might not 
annoy you any more,” he finished rather abruptly. 

She drew herself up, looking at him for the first 
time with a feeling she could hardly define. It 


234 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


was almost like touching another and^ a higher 
kind of existence. As a friend he was perfect — 
but a lover ! — this involved subtleties of which she 
had no experience. 

I am not quite certain about myself/' she said 
hesitatingly, and longing that she could be rude 
enough to rush away from him. Her resistant 
courage did not come to her aid just then, simply 
because he had been making her acutely conscious 
of all that she was losing if he were sent away ; 
and yet she could endure his direct gaze no longer. 
She rose hastily from her seat, walking away a lit- 
tle distance, then turning to face him again with a 
pretty gesture half of contempt, half of menace. 

“ I hate love-making ! " she said emphatically. 

You were much more interesting arguing in the 
cause of friendship. There is something sacred 
in that ; the other is intolerable ! Pray never men- 
tion it again." 

He turned pale, was silent for a moment, then 
said in a miserable sort of way, “ Will it always 
be so? " 

“ I think it will," with an assumption of gravity 
and half regret, as she saw the wretchedness he 
did not attempt to conceal. “ I don’t want a 
lover," she said impulsively ; “ I want a friend. It 
is rather hard to disappoint me this way ! " 


m THEIR HEARTS.' 


235 


And then there was just a perceptible pause as 
he bowed over her hand, said good-bye, and left 
the room. 

Almost immediately after the hall door closed 
May came in, and, to her surprise, found Clarie 
sobbing bitterly. 

She looked up at her sister’s tender inquiry, 
“ What can have happened, child ? ” biting her lips 
to keep back her sobs ; and then going up to her, 
putting her hands on her shoulder and dropping 
her voice to the lowest whisper. “ Don’t ask me 
now. May. It is useless to cry and feel bad over 
anything in this world ; but we are all babies some- 
times, and I — I have lost my rattle too. I’ll find it 
again, you’ll see, or I’ll learn not to care for it, and 
take up with a doll.” 

“Dolls and rattles?” queried May, opening her 
eyes. 

“It amounts to the same thing; yes, dear.” 
And then she put her arms around her sister’s 
neck again and said brokenly : “ Do love me a lit- 
tle, May ! ” 

“ A little ! ” cried May with pretended indig-, 
nation. “ You more than extortionate Jew ! Even 
the pound of flesh will not satisfy you. But I want 
you to be serious now, dear ; Doctor Lovell must 
have been saying something ; tell me what it was.” 


236 THE OTHER HOUSE. ‘ 

I haven’t a thing to tell you,” said Clarie per- 
versely, except that I want you to love mo. I 
don’t care a fig for anybody else in the world ; and 
I am sure if I want to be wretched just for a 
minute, and for the sake of having a little variety 
in my life, it isn’t anybody’s business but my own.” 

There was a moment’s silence after this, and in 
the pause and hush May’s blue eyes grew soft and 
brooding again. 

“ Come and sit down by me, dear,” she said 
gently. “ If you have nothing to tell me, I have 
a great deal to tell you— ryou and Alice, both to- 
gether.” 


CHAPTER XIX. 


AFTERWARD. 

1% yr OST lives have times of waiting irj them — 
halting spots, as it were — little, still pauses 
when our book of life lies open before us, but the 
pages are turned slowly, and our hands linger over 
the writing. We wait for our story — be it happi- 
ness or sorrow — not caring to dream what it may 
be. And this is what May Gallatin had been do- 
ing for several years. She was content that her 
times of waiting had been in God’s hand, not her 
own. It had been enough for her to sit in the 
sweet shadows of a memory and let the years 
grow holier as they drifted noiselessly by, bearing 
her nearer to a perfect joy with each day’s waiting. 
She had even thought her book closed forever, and 
now it was open again — the page as fair and un- 
sullied as the new life she had just begun. 

It seemed fit that it. all should come to her in 
the early spring-time, when the earth was most full 
of promise — this new name, and new life of her’s 

— when the warm south winds were blowing — 

(237) 


238 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


when the violets grew thick upon the meadows, 
and tall, fair lilies swung their noiseless bells to 
usher in the blessed Easter-tide. 

They were married very early in the morning, at 
St. Michael’s — Mr. Chantelling and May — with 
neither bridesmaids, carriages, nor wedding-guests. 
Mr. Chantelling walked down to the church before 
breakfast, and Miss Clem — with eyes that were 
tenderer than ever, if that were possible — followed 
in the carriage containing the three Gallatin girls. 
The Bishop was waiting in the vestry with the 
rector, and, when the ceremony was over, they 
all went home together and had a cheerful break- 
fast, just as if nothing unusual had happened, ex- 
cept that May took her seat at the head of the 
table, instead of Miss Clem, and afterward the 
Bishop paid a visit to the house of the Senior 
Warden, and electrified the entire household with 
the news that he had driven over somewhat early 
to have the pleasure of breakfasting with Mr. and 
Mrs. Chantelling! 

Of course no one liked it. No one ever does 
like such high-handed proceedings — and no one 
ever likes the clergyman’s choice — that is, at first. 
If he married all the cardinal virtues, and an em- 
bryo saint into the bargain, there would still be 
some discontented souls who would think it might 


AFTERWARD. 


239 


have been better. After a time, however, when 
they saw May Chantelling was just as sweet and 
unassuming as May Gallatin had been, they began 
to say it could be worse ; all but Jane Lewis. Jane, 
who had felt herself “ born with a vocation ” — she 
shook her sparse locks coldly, and said it was an 
extremely difficult position for diny jyoun^^ person to 
fill ; she hoped it would turn out well, but Mr. 
Chantelling was so impetuous.” 

As for Miss Clem, I am sorry to record that she 
nearly lost her wits on this auspicious occasion. 
Not that she was displeased at her brother’s de- 
liberate choosing for himself, and not that she did 
not love May dearly — indeed she opened her arms 
to the fatherless girl, and took her to her heart as 
if she had been her own choice all along — but she 
still clung to her old belief — it was Alice who 
should be queen of the rector’s heart — Alice, the 
wise one of the family. And Harcourt — who could 
have dreamed that he would be so blind and in- 
sensible ! And then such a very odd courtship — in 
fact, no courtship at all. She was quite sure that 
on the eventful morning^ when she retired to her 
own room, that May might have the felicity of 
giving Alice away, without a third party to listen 
to the rector’s entreaties ; she was quite sure she 
had not been alone five minutes when they came 



240 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 

in together, and the Reverend Harcourt, bending 
down to kiss her forehead with more than his usual 
effusion, said, ‘‘ Clem, congratulate me ; May has 
been making me the happiest of men.” “ Then 
she has given Alice to you,” the old lady said, 
beaming upon the pair with one of her most radi- 
ant smiles, and pronouncing it as a fact, not an in- 
terrogation. But she never forgot the answer, “ No, 
Clem, she has been giving me herself! ” Really, 
when she thought it all over, she wondered some- 
times that she had not gone insane on the spot ! 
Not that she was sorry — bless May’s dear heart, 
no — but it gave her such a turn ! and to have no 
romance — no courtship — nothing but the quiet un- 
derstanding that was so utterly unfathomable — 
certainly it was no wonder that Miss Clem was 
silent from sheer astonishment. And then again 
no wedding — no cake — but just a nice little break- 
fast, and then May sitting down in the library with 
her work, and a smile of placid content on her 
face, while the rector cut the leaves of a new 
magazine and read the leading article aloud to her. 
It was the oddest bridal festivity! To be sure, the 
Reverend Harcourt had drawn his easy-chair as 
close tq May’s as was seemly for a clergyman and a 
man of his well-known reticence and deliberation ; 
but — it wouldn’t have been Miss Clem’s way. She 


AFTER WARD. 


241 


gathered up her work-basket, crotcheting, and fine 
mending, and announced that she should take a 
wedding trip if the happy pair did not. She really 
felt that she was needed now at the other house ; 
the idea of two orphan girls having things all their 
own way, it really was her duty to see to them. 
So it came to pass that she and May exchanged 
places, as it were, and for a week Miss Clem reso- 
lutely endured her self-banishment. At the ex- 
piration of that time she came out of her state of 
astonishment and perplexity, and vibrated like a 
pendulum from one house to the other, pleased 
with everything and everybody, and flinging the 
information broadcast throughout - the parish that 
her brother was a very wise man, and his choice 
had her thorough approval. Nevertheless this 
acquiescence brought with it some, perplexities. 
There was Alice still to be provided for. Miss Clem 
knit her brows and took another look about her. 
She had been waiting too as well as .May — turning 
over the book of life very slowly, and lingering in 
a dreamy happiness over the reading of it ; but 
now she considered it high time for her to wake up. 
The pause was over, and existence had begun 
again. It was Doctor Lovell — that rising young 
practitioner — a man of position and culture ; he it 
was, and he alone, who was worthy of Alice. It 


II 


242 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


was very odd that she had never thought of him 
before ! 

To this end she contrived all manner of excuses 
to bring him into the Gallatin household, wonder- 
ing at his evident reluctance in coming, but 
pleased, beyond her wildest expectations, when he 
did come, that he devoted himself so exclusively 
to Alice and took so little notice of Clarie. She 
even feigned one or two headaches, varying it 
with decided symptoms of heart disease, and 
might have become utterly bedridden in her en- 
thusiasm, had not a little occurrence sent her 
chateaux en Espagne tumbling about her ears for 
the second time, and eventually causing her to 
give up her architectural pastimes for all time to 
come. It was simply the announcement of Clarie’s 
engagement to Doctor Lovell. 

How it all came about no one ever knew, not 
even Clarie. And it was certainly the last thing 
that Doctor Lovell had intended. It would have 
been extremely difficult to describe the effect pro- 
duced upon his mind by his last interview with 
Clarie. She had disappointed him by her indiffer- 
ence and wounded him by her petulant insensi- 
bility — not that he felt in the least a charming and 
irresistible personage ; on the contrary, he had 
moments of great depression regarding his inferi- 


AFTER WARD. 


243 


ority and unfitness for the position he craved. Her 
very peremptory rejection of him, her brusquerie, 
her childish candor, and the energy with which she 
had sent him away — though he was loth to admit 
it — only increased his admiration of her. She was 
so unlike, so much better than he. All her little 
fluctuations of temper, her pride, her decided 
opinions, were lovely to hirn — lovelier than the 
few charming traits of character which she certain- 
ly did possess, and which gave him an indulgent 
feeling toward her, an excuse to throw the glamour 
of love, like a veil, over any little flaw or imper- 
fection. He did not mean to go on loving her in a 
hopeless sort of fashion, like the men one reads of 
in sensational novels ; on the contrary, he intended 
to put her out of his heart as soon as possible, 
but — it was Miss Clem’s fault — and it was sim- 
ply out of his power to frame any excuse why 
he, the only physician in the place, should not 
visit her professionally, though it was a thing as 
incomprehensible as unreasonable why she should 
choose the other house for her seasons of illness. 
May was all that a sweet and tender sister should 
be, and quite willing to intrust the management 
of the household to Miss Clem, as usual ; but that 
volatile lady had taken a vacation for the first 
time in her life, and it was apparently so absorbing 


244 THE OTHER HOUSE. 

and pleasant that it was quite impossible to per- 
suade her into taking up her old burdens. ^ 

So it came to pass that the Doctor met Clarie 
almost daily. At first there was some constraint, 
as was natural ; but after a time, in Miss Clem's 
hours of sprightly convalescence, it was really 
rather delightful than otherwise to meet her, 
though he avoided anything like direct conversa- 
tion, and was politely assiduous enough to Alice to ' 

satisfy even Miss Clem ; but kept that innocent 
schemer in a settled state of invalidism, and '\ 

caused May and her husband much secret per- 
turbation, though Miss Clem assured them that 
Doctor Lovell was making a most perfect cure of '' 

her case, as indeed her pink cheeks and bright 
eyes could sufficiently testify to. As for Doc- ■ 

tor Lovell himself, though he wondered over Miss ) 

Clem’s ailments, and at first was inclined to laugh 
at them, his visits drifted almost insensibly into set- 
tied habit. He intended to tell her each day that i 

she really needed him no longer, but each day al- I 

lowed himself to be detained upon the most trivial r 

pretext. He lingered near Clarie, hoping for he 
knew not what — praying that something might 
happen — that she might tell him she was nearly j 

broken-hearted because she had been silly enough ] 




AFTER WARD. 


245 


to reject so fascinating a personage, or indeed any- 
thing else equally absurd and irrational. But the 
way it all ended was odd enough, and, in that one 
respect, sufficiently like Clarie to be proper. 

She had gone out one summer afternoon to 
stray away by herself, beyond Debby’s cottage and 
past the mill bridge. It was a radiantly bright 
day; no clouds in the still blue, and no wind to 
disturb, even by a whisper, the absolute serenity and 
repose about her. She seated herself under a tree 
and arranged the flowers she had been gathering in 
a basket, then folded her hands and was soon lost 
in thought. It was just the day to dream. She 
went back a year. She thought of all that had 
passed since then — her father’s death — May’s mar- 
riage — the repulse she had given Doctor Lovell — 
the solitude of the old house — the two lonely girls 
who made it their home. But her dream was 
broken in upon, and all her thoughts scattered to 
the winds, when she heard a step approaching. ' She 
was a little disturbed, but not positively annoyed, 
when she looked up and saw that the intruder was 
Doctor Lovell, though she rose at once, promptly 
lifting her basket and turning to take the path 
home. He walked along by her side, indulging in 
some vague conversation, as the sunset lights faded, 


246 


THE OTHER HOUSE. 


feeling an indescribable sense of embarrassment, 
and yet not having the courage to put fate aside 
and speak boldly. 

Do you know, Miss Clarie,” he said at length, 
“ that it is just about a year since I came to 
Briarly?” 

I was thinking of that when I sat down by the 
river,” she replied ; “ I was going into a little retro- 
spection. How much has happened since then, 
and how strangely and sadly our lives have 
changed. I think I miss my dear father more 
than at first. Doctor Lovell,” raising her soft eyes 
to his face. “ People say time can efface any 
memory, but, oh ! I think I shall never forget.” 

Her voice had sunk to the lowest whisper; her 
eyes were full of tears as she spoke. He longed 
to take her to his heart and comfort her, but he 
dared not trust himself with even the few kind 
words that rose to his lips. 

“ I have been sorry many times that I came. It 
has all been wrong from the beginning, and now — 
I wanted to speak to you of it first. I have very 
nearly made up my mind to go away.” 

“To stay?” asked Clarie, with a little tremble 
in her voice. 

“Yes, to stay; to go into some city — possibly 
go abroad again — anything to make a change.” 


AFTER WARD. 


247 


“ But why need you desire change ? ” she ques- 
tioned, with a little, rising color. 

“You know I have no home, no ties to bind me 
to one spot. Once it seemed to me that my whole 
world was here,’’ looking at her so she could not 
bear his eyes ; “ now there is nothing I can call my 
own. I feel myself a mere waif on the stream of 
Time. It would be different if I had some rela- 
tive, or dear friend, or even a house of my own.” 

. “ There is papa’s office,” said Clarie, speaking 
very low and very fast. “ Everything is just as he 
left it — his chairs, his books;' you had no objection 
to take his practice — it would only be proper ta 
call everything that pertained to it your own now.” 

“Stop a moment — the road is rough here, won’t 
you take my arm ? Don’t you know that you have 
made it impossible for me to do all this ? I do not 
want your father’s place or practice, or indeed any- 
thing more of his, since I can not have the one only 
thing that would make that position tolerable.” 

There are some little things in life that we re- 
member so well when we grow older. All her life 
afterward Clarie remembered this day, and how 
she had paused, with her hand on Doctor Lovell’s 
arm, while he said those few words. She forgot a 
thousand other things, but she never forgot that — 
that summer afternoon down by the river bank. 


248 


^ THE OTHER HOUSE. 


when she felt for the first time what it would be to 
her if he were to go away from her forever. ' 

“But — I thought — ” clasping his arm closer, 
“ perhaps — I see no reason why you could not have 
that too.” 

“ I was only taking you at your word,” bending 
down to look into her face. 

“ But you ought to know,” she stammered ; “ I 
am only a woman — and — I think I have changed 
my mind.” 

And here my story must end. 

There is so little, so very little to tell. There 
are phases more vivid in the every-day lives of the 
people about us, than those of whom I have writ- 
ten, I do not doubt. Life is continually repeating 
itself — sometimes in poetry, oftener in prose — 
love and joy, and pain and self-sacrifice — there is 
nothing new to tell, and our own hearts are full of 
such unwritten history. 

But for the wedding that followed before another 
year had rolled around, I think I should lay my 
pen down here, and of that I shall merely speak, 
for no one could possibly do justice to Miss Clem’s 
joy and pride. It was such a comfort that after so 
many, many years of expectancy and disappointment 
that there should be a wedding — not an irregular 


AFTER WARD. 


249 


proceeding like Harcourt’s — in the family after all. 
She nearly wore herself out in endeavoring to be a 
mother to Clarie, who, for the first time in her life, 
agreed with her in all the minutiae relative to cake, 
dress, and wedding-guests. As for the feast it was 
the ’essence of all the wedding feasts of which Miss 
Clem had dreamed for more than half a century. 

Of course all the parish were there : first at the 
church, and after the ceremony at the other house, 
which was thrown open in the old, hospitable man- 
ner once more. Even Deb and Jem were there, 
and Clarie had a comfortable seat arranged for the 
hunchbacked girl in one of the kitchen windows 
where she could look through and see all the fine 
company assembled. 

Deb had been in failing health since the burning 
of the mill, and people had grown very tender with 
her, and kind to Jem, who was now promoted to 
the position of office-boy to Doctor Lovell. Ever 
since that one night of horror, when she had fold- 
ed her arms to die, she had been a changed creat- 
ure. The blank dullness of her life had been 
swept away, and she no longer looked upon it as a 
bitter cheat and failure. In those dark hours of 
facing death she had found Him to be a friend, 
not a foe, and her love and trust had grown and 
strengthened into a quiet hope which she once had 


250 


THE OTHER HOUSE, 


thought it impossible to possess. Mr. Chantelling 
she looked upon with something more than rever- 
ence, and Clarie had grown to be perfect in h'er 
eyes. She gazed at the young bride, in all the 
surpassing loveliness of her bridal robes, with tears 
of honest pride and admiration, but she did not 
dream for one moment that Clarie would come out 
to speak to her. It was a sight Jem never forgot — 
young Mrs. Lovell in her wedding-dress. “A crack- 
lin’ white satin,” as he afterward informed his bob- 
bin-boy friends, “ a-trailin’ along on the kitchen- 
floor, and she not holding it up a mite, and shakin’ 
hands with us all round, as if we was company 
too,” and then he added his first impression of 
her, “ My eye ! aint she a stunner ! ” 

Miss Clem had the felicity of receiving the 
guests with the bride,, and otherwise conducting as 
if she were the acknowledged head of the house- 
hold, which was quite as gratifying to her as the 
seat in the kitchen window had been to Deb and 
Jem. The old lady’s face was flushed with enthu- 
siasm as she dispensed compliments and wedding- 
cake simultaneously, beaming upon everybody as if 
the dream of her life was now fulfilled. She could 
not refrain, however, from giving Mrs. Abury a 
brief insight into her heart in one of the pauses 
of her hospitality. 


AFTERWARD. 


251 


‘‘ It has all ended very nicely, Mrs. Abury,” she 
fluttered, “ very nicely indeed — in fact, much better 
than I at one time expected. But I shall never 
understand a man — never in all my life — nor for 
the matter of that, some women — Clarie, for in- 
stance. She never could endure Doctor Lovell — 
oh ! I assure you it is quite true ; there was a time 
when she positively detested him, and now — my 
dear, she adores him !. absolutely adores him ! And 
she isn’t a bit ashamed that every one should know ' 
it, which perhaps is all right and proper. I think 
she makes it a sort of expiation — a sort of ex- 
piation, you know ; and as for Harcourt, why, a 
Chinese-puzzle isn’t a circumstance to him. To 
think I should have been deluded all my life into 
thinking it was Alice he wished to marry. Why, 
though he has been married a year, and though I 
love May dearly, I haven’t gotten over it yet — for 
he did delude me, Mrs. Abury. He didn’t mean 
to, you know, but he certainly succeeded. But 
Alice cares for no one, I am thankful to say, and 
we shall be the two happiest women in the whole 
world, I think, when we can settle down together 
and let these married people stay up in their rose- 
colored clouds until they are ready to come down 
again. But, oh ! Mrs. Abury, I may laugh about 
it, but I do love dearly to see an old-fashioned 


252 " THE OTHER HOUSE. 

love marriage. I was never intended to be an old 
maid ; why, you know I even had my wedding- 
dress made — not a bit like this — dear no — ” and 
Miss Clem looked down with disdain *at the mul- 
titude of her knife-plaitings, and smoothed the 
silken glory of her upper skirt. My wedding- 
dress I have yet, though it was a merciful Provi- 
dence I never wore it. It is sweetly pretty still — 
such a fine white satin — all piped and corded, and 
eight-and-sixpence the yard.” 

But bless the dear old soul ! We have all heard 
about that wedding-dress before. It really is not 
necessary to have Miss Clem tell it again — is it ? 


THE END. 


A S ONG AND' A Sigh. 

BY ROSE PORTER, 

Author of “ Summer Driftwood,” etc. 

12mo, Cloth. Price, - - $1.28. 


“This winning story of a young girl’s and a young 
wife’s life could not lack in the peculiar charm which 
invest this author’s writings.”— iVistf Bedfwd Standard. 

“Miss Porter’s stories are neat, unpretentious, and 
healthful. Without complicated plot or stirring scene, 
they please the fancy and enchain the interest by their 
beautiful simplicity and touching sweetness. The char- 
acters are winsome, and we follow their lives with a real 
regard for them. "—Albany Evening Journal. 

“Full of sweet suggestion, exquisite description, and 
tender thought.”— CAmfian Intelligencer. 

“ Lit up with the' glory of some of the commoner expe- 
riences of \\lQ."—CongregationaXist. 

Anson D. F. Randolph & Co., 

OOO^roadway, Cor. 20tli St., N. Y. 

Sent by mall, post-paid, on receipt of the price. 


/ 


SPARE-HOUR SERIES. 


stepping-stones; 

A STORY OF OUR INNER LIFE. 

By SARAH DOUDNEY, 

Author of “ Nothing but Leaves." 

12mo, Cloth, Price, - . - . $1.00. 


“Written with a quiet simplicity that is refreFhing. 
There is no sensation anywhere. The scenes are of the 
most realistic kind, and the figures stand out clear and 
individualized. All is so natural, that hut for some of 
its peculiar English accessions, such as vicar and curate 
life furnish, it might have occurred among onr neighbors. 
From beginning to end it is ivholesome, sweet, pure, full 
of helpful suggestions, and so lit up with the warmth and 
glow of true religion, that it is frtighted for all with what 
can do nothing but good.”— 5o. Churchman. 

“ A volume of peculiar charm. It is a love-story so 
pleasantly told and ends so happily, that the reader will 
feel amply repaid.”— Interior. 

“ For the spare hour which it is intended to occupy, 
it will prove a most agreeable companion .” — Christian 
Union. 

“We have nothing but praise for the story.”— 
tian Intelligencer. 

“ Tranquil, sunny, and healthful ,” — Boston Journal. 

ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & CO., 

900 Broadway, Cor. 2Cth St., New York. 

Sent., post-paid., by mail, on receipt of the price. 


4 


PEMA.QUID: 

A Story of Old Times in New England! 

BY MRS. E. PRENTISS, 

A uthor o/ “ Stepping Heavenward^ 

SIX ILLUSTRATIONS. 

12mo, CLOTH, PRICE, - - $1.75 


“ The structure of the book is altogether unique, and has a charm of its own 
It is not a continuous narrative, but the characters are made to introduce 
themselves, and to portray the persons and incidents of the story from their 
several points of view, in language and coloring peculiar to themselves. To 
gether they form a thoroughly individualized group, presenting strong con- 
trasts, such as a New England village might easily have furnished seventy- 
five years ago. The aim of the book, if aim there be, is to exhibit the religious 
type of the period at once in its strength and in its tenderness, and to show 
the power which a well disciplined and chastened spirit has to suhdue at last 
a most worldly and selfish nature. 

“The story abounds in that delicate humor which plays through all of Mrs. 
Prentiss’ writings, and is thoroughly religious in tone. We regard it as one 
of her best books.’’ — The Evangelist^ N. Y, 

“ The story is a pleasant one— pleasantly told. It is of course a love story 
and ends happily and very sweetly.’’ — Providence Press. 

“Pleasantly readable throughout.’’ — New York Evening Post. 

“ The book has a field of its own. It will be read with pleasure by a large 
circle, to whom it will be fresh and entertaining.’’ — New York Observer. 

12mo, cloth, illustrated, price $1.75. May be obtained of any bookseller, or 
will be sent, post-paid, on receipt of the price by the publishers, 

ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY, 


900 BROADWAY, COR. 20 th ST., N. V. 


“ One op iii£ most bea.utifui^ stories about children wb havd 

EVER READ.”— Weekly. 


MISUNDERSTOOD. 

By Florence Montgomery. 

“Two little English children landed not long since unexpectedly 
In our midst, an cl,, introduced by Randolph & Co., of Broadway, New 
York, walked unchallenged into every home in our land. 

“ They arc known as Humphrey and Miles Buncombe, and from 
the first moment of their coming until now, have reigned with a lawful 
sovereignty over every heart that has not misunderstood their mission. 

’“These are charming, well-bred, cleanly children. Children with 
stately family names, of which they. are never fobbed by a flippant, 
^mlgar nickname. By the way, are not nicknames a growing vulgarity 
amongst us, helping somewhat to break down the barriers that should 
enclose our very hearths and homes? These children are full of mis- 
chief and curiosity, troublesome too, be^'ond all but a mother’s en- 
durance ; and, sad to tell, they are motherless. Yet, whatever else 
they may be, they never cease to be children to clasp close to loving 
hearts, with an intense realization coming to those who thus clasp 
tliem, of their later departure out of Eden, and of the innocence and 
purity and holiest reverence still clinging to them. 

“ VVe think the scene of Humphrey watching the evening bath and 
undressing of Miles, his little brother, is altogether an unequalled 
photograph.” — “M.” in Chtirch Journal. 

“ Misunderstood is not a child’s story, but is intended for those 
who are interested in children. It has been thought that the lives of 
children, as known by themselves, from their own little point of view, 
are not always sufficiently realized — that they are sometimes over, 
looked or misunderstood; and to throw some light, however faint 
upon the subject, is one of the objects of this story, much of which 
has been gathered from observation and recollection.” — Author^a 
Preface. 

“As a pen picture of boy character we think it could scarcely bo 
surpassed. ” — Quar'erly. 

“We defy any one, with ordinary sensibility, to read the first half 
of this book without laughter.” — Harper's Magazine. 

The Book is bound in Paper Covers, and may be ordered through any 
Bookseller, or can be had direct from the Publishers, who, for the published 
pnee, 50 Ceuts, will send a copy by mail, post-paid. 

PUBLISHED BY 

ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY, 

SOO Broadway, Cor, 20th St., New York. 


1 




l« 











■ # ’ 


1 ^' 

• f 

t 


» «. 


« 


iS 




S .Av 


« 


r 




» 







% 





4 





I 


. « 


»4 


4 




I 


I 


t 


•' ^ 


K 


4 . ■ 






I ^ 

•4 


4 4 




% 


i 


i 




\ 








k 




• - >* i 

r I 


• r 


I' 

ft 


V 


I 


t 


r 


4 




i 


4 

/ 








4 


a 


V 


» 




I 


4 



I 


" 4 




.« 


» 


J 





< 


^ 




I 

* 

1 ‘ 



4 





4 




ft 


ft 




ft 


ft 

I 

f*^ 


i I 


9 • 


4 




/. 




;v;i 



t ♦ 





< r 




• '• 








I 




•J 


» . 








A 


r . . • 



■ J ■ 

• • 




I '! '■- / 


I % 


, • 






< ^ 




I ^ 


t i 


« . 


/ 


E’ 


.% •“ 


1 1 








V 

4. 


f 


> • 


^ I 


./ , 

!• * * 

/ 


% I 


li' '■ i 


^ I ' ^ ^ T 


: ^ , 

I 


V ' • r * 


2r>>'V‘ 


.,^--1 1 


y ,v 


>»; . 



t < 


C: 


« 

< 


u. 


» • • 

W:V^ 


i 






.i\ 


» I 


»‘-S ‘ 




I 


» I 


, I 


■m 


» ^ * j 

-•■' M 


• ^ 



k ’• V 

%' 


-" -Hi 



/ 


- / 




I 


.1 

# 

A 


w 


f /» 


w 


•1>’ 




*>' ’ - 




' > ' % 1 



^•9 


i 


■i 


1 I 


r t 


J 


■' ■} 
• r 


« » 
« • 








'\ • « 



« 

» / 





0 





K 



7 












» . 


■ff 




j > 


« 




HT' N* « 

‘It,.’- - .' 


«> 


r 


< 



















